The Great Purge

The Real Estate Drama continues. Buyer number four changed his mind. Whenever that singing fat lady finally gets here, I'm gonna kiss every one of her pudgy little toes!

Meanwhile, I've been inspired by a great book that people are talking about, at least here in Dallas, called Getting Things Done by David Allen. I tried to post a pic of the book under my Currently Reading sidebar, but the URL somehow links to a different book.

Allen asks you to think of a project that's been on your mind for a while, something that seems overwhelming and that's been bothering you. Okay, that was easy: The Move to North Carolina. This is a huge honking project that involves selling one house, fixing up another, selling it, finding a new house, new employment, moving to another state, etc. etc. etc.

Then Allen asks you to think about breaking everything down into "the next action." If you could start on this project right now, he asks, what would be the FIRST thing you would actually, physically do? Hmm. Well, I realized that the first thing would be to get up, go to the kitchen, grab the box of large brown trash bags, and start throwing out everything that wasn't going with us to NC. And, I would do that one room at a time, starting with my bathroom.

Wow! This was so energizing that I started The Great Purge the very next day. I've done three rooms so far. I've spent the most time on the papers in my office and file cabinets. Allen tells you exactly how to handle those. It's an amazing feeling to have all of that under control and organized in a way that makes sense.

When I'm done with the The Great Purge, everything that's left in the house can be packed when the time comes, and it IS coming. We won't have to decide what to do with every item as we pack -- give away? or throw away? -- because that part's already been done.

Our realtor is amazing. He's scheduled three showings of the renthouse today. Maybe the singing fat lady will be with one of them.