I'm happy to share that I have finished my room's spring cleaning (and now I can move on to other parts of our house). It was a daunting task made possible by setting small targets and adhering to deadlines. Now that I roughly know how many things I have and how much space they occupy, I can go look for storage solutions.
Since my last blog post, I dedicated almost every night to cleaning some part of my room. I'm usually exhausted after a long day of work, but the image of what my room will look like keeps me motivated. One night it could be the drawers in my wardrobe, the next night could be my overloaded bookshelf. I was aware of planning fallacy, so I tried not to be too greedy and merely set a small, manageable area for each night. For areas that required more attention and effort, I left them till I had more time, like today. This worked very well for me, and I am satisfied that the targets I set were achieved.
While cleaning my room I realised I kept many things that were of little practical utility, i.e., mementos. Going through my old clothes sent me hurtling down memory lane. It is simply unreal to be able to physically touch garments that I only knew I had worn in old pictures of my younger self. I never thought they still exist. I don't even remember wearing them!
Then there were the letters, holiday cards and journals. I sorted them by type and year, then put them away without even flipping them open. Handwritten words carry with them a certain brand of magic that only gets stronger with time. Best not to touch them, especially at night.
There are simply too many books and papers in my room that need to be organised. For the moment I have filed some of the papers by subject and stacked my novels according to size, but these are temporary arrangements (hopefully). I have to be more selective about the books I buy from now on. Not that I don't have that practice already. For the past few years, I tried to make it a point to purchase only books whose value won't decrease too much with time (books that are worth keeping/investing in). That should explain the bulk of English classics I read and reviewed in previous posts, haha.
Stationery and electronic devices were a piece of cake compared to everything else. I just had to group them by type and put them away in separate drawers for easy access. My room is also home to my family's curtains and bedclothes. They took a while to put in order as they come in sets. I grouped them by frequency of use. Those which have seen better days went up to higher cabinets and those which are often used stay in lower ones for accessibility.
There are actually new tasks which cropped up during the week-long spring cleaning, so I wasn't wrong in predicting that this will be a long-term project.
These days my daydreams were interspersed with thoughts of my room's new look. With only a rough idea of how it will be, I did my research on pieces of furniture and storage boxes that I'm interested in, as well as worked out particulars like which is more urgent, which can wait, which to get first, etc. During train rides to work or back home, I was often deep in thought, mentally manipulating the position of objects in my room and updating the plans for my room. Logistics and cost are very real issues to deal with, not to mention extraneous variables that might derail my plans... I shall do as much as I can, while I still have the motivation and optimism.
So far I've visited two value stores in search for some cheap trays and boxes that would serve my storage needs. Not everything has to be from IKEA, really, though I do wonder why there isn't a Malaysian equivalent of IKEA already. There are better alternatives - I just have to look. I'm really grateful that I have something to look forward to at the end of each work day. It gives me something tangible to work with, thus keeping my mind from excessively introspecting (a welcome relief!)
