Make Room for Your Creativity

Even in this so-called 'paperless' age, writers seem to collect more bits of paper than anybody - books (which take up huge amounts of space, especially if they're hardbacks), notebooks, print-outs of their own writing, notes, scraps of paper with interesting web addresses written on them, leaflets, newspapers and magazines collected for research.

The trouble is that it all very quickly accumulates and before you know it you can hardly find space to sit at your computer because of the room that all the bits of paper are taking up. And you can't easily go through and chuck out the oldest bits because they're hidden behind the newer ones. So the problem gets bigger and bigger.

The most frustrating thing is if you want to put your hands on something you've written or some notes you've kept, but you can't possibly find them in the morass of material. It means that it was a waste of time to keep the stuff in the first place.

Do you detect the note of frustration here? Do I sound as if I'm taking more than an academic interest in this subject?

Yes, as you may have gathered over the past few weeks, I have been having an almightly de-clutter and file-in. I have so much stuff that the job has taken me several weeks, time when I could have been doing other useful things like sending stories off to magazines or writing articles for Triond.

But I knew the job needed to be done and if I didn't do it now over the summer holidays, it would be a long time before I had the time to tackle it again. So I have stuck at it.

A lot of the time the situation seemed to be getting worse rather than better. I'd done quite a good job of acquiring box files and sorting out lots of my papers into them, but the trouble was that I still had nowhere to put them.

Today I started to empty some more bookshelves to clear some space for them and for a while I seemed to be surrounded by so many tottering piles that every time I turned round I was in danger of starting an avalanche.

However, some of the stuff that's going to go is now sorted out - books for the charity shop in a box, singing books for my son to try to sell at school in a nice strong carrier bag, at least one bin bag of junk in the wheelie bin. I'm getting there, gradually.

I know I have to press on for these last few days as time is running out. The first of my college staff meetings is tomorrow morning (yes, I know it's a Saturday!). Then next week I have three sessions of enrolling students for my new classes and the week after that my In-service PGCE (teaching qualification) begins, so it will be all go!

I'm determined that I start of the term with a place for everything and everything in its place. Not only will it mean that I have a better chance of finding what I need for my classes, but I will also know where all my ongoing pieces of writing are, so it will be easier to carry on with it, or tackle new pieces.

Psychologically, too, it will be much easier to work in an orderly, tidy room, and it will be better for my asthma too if I don't have so many dusty old papers around me. You will appreciate how much of a hoarder I am if I tell you that I still had photocopies of music we used for school concerts when I was at grammar school back in 1975!! There's no way I'm ever going to need those again, and you can carry sentimentality too far!

Maybe you're better than me at keeping your workspace orderly. Maybe you live in a bigger house with lots of cupboards where you can stash away all your bits and pieces. Maybe you just don't accumulate stuff the way I do.

But why not spend a few minutes thinking about whether you could make a bit more physical space for yourself to be creative? A little bit of time spent having a de-clutter could give you more mental space and energy in the long run.