To Do: Basement
I keep a running list of prioritized projects on my fridge. “Fix toilet paper holder”, “drop off clothing donations” and other tangible things. “Basement” has always been at the top of the list. Our basement is a slightly inconvenient (and slightly terrifying) place. Victorian era basements were mainly used for storing coal, canned goods and according to my children, bodies. Because it’s so damp, we’ve had to cautiously decide what we can store in it and because it’s so terrifying, we typically throw things into a pile to limit the time one has to spend down there. As such, it’s impossible to find anything which is counterintuitive to have to spend extra time wading through piles of shit and potentially deadly spiders in order to find things. But once I finally decided to tackle “Basement”, I learned that “Basement” was an Epic that needed to be broken up into many sub-tasks in order to feel like I’m making any actual progress. Enter the Major Tasks Planner. Though the Ultimate Goal is to organize the basement, there are major tasks needed in order to complete that goal.
Step One: Tackle the mountain one shovelful at a time
Tasks should be completed one at a time, or else it’s easy to hit a wall and it makes crossing off individual tasks daunting. Control your inner “squirrel”! You need to be able to see progress is being made to motivate you, not a bunch of half completed jobs that prevent you from crossing tasks off your list.
Step Two: Make friends with the label maker
Yes, I know where all of the tape lives, but my husband does not. Labeling pays off the fruits of your labor. I didn’t even have to stop everything I was doing to go down and show him - score!
Step Three: Get rid of the junk
I found a group of awesome guys off our local FB group who came and loaded up what I thought was a HUGE amount of junk. It took them less than an hour and was pretty cheap. You have to remember that a lot of these junk removal companies deal with major hoarders, etc., so while you may think disposing of 4 doors - amongst other things - is a day long effort, it is not and it doesn’t actually break the bank…or your back.
Side note: highly recommend throwing in the box of IPAs collecting dust to go towards the tip
Step Infinity: Putting it all together
Is it perfect? No…making things “perfect” is a surefire way to impede progress. You can continue to refine, edit and get in touch with your inner anal retentive self as you go. As they say the first step is admitting you have a problem then tackling it one day at a time.
