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Yesterday, I finished sorting one of my plastic bins full of old papers and mail.

(This is just an update on my progress on a couple of steps in a big long-term project; not looking for advice.)

To celebrate the availability of an empty plastic bin, I promptly half-filled it again, this time with stuff from my desk and nightstand.

The top surfaces of the desk and nightstand are now more visible than I think they’ve ever been before. (Well, except for when I first acquired them.) They each still contain a few items that are only there because I don’t have a better place for them yet; but only a few, where previously there were dozens.

This is, of course, only putting off the problem of what to do with all of those things; I don’t intend for them to live in a plastic bin long-term. But still, it’s kind of neat to have evidence that my desk and nightstand have upper surfaces.

It’s even possible that I’m gradually unlearning my lifelong belief that the purpose of a horizontal surface is to cover it with piles of stuff.

…The paper-sorting is only one step in a long project. I still have another plastic bin full of old papers, and at least two cardboard boxes, so the next step is to finish sorting those. That will leave me with (in essence) two piles of paper: one of paper to be filed (in my filing cabinets), the other of paper to deal with soon. (It will also result in many bags of paper to be recycled.) So there’s still a lot of sorting and filing and dealing-with and recycling left to be done.

But it has been nice to be making progress on all this.

Usual disclaimer applies: There’s nothing inherently wrong or bad about accumulating stuff. In my particular case, I’ve decided to organize (and in some cases get rid of) certain kinds of stuff, but that doesn’t imply any judgment about anyone else’s choices.