My de-cluttering saga continues.  (You can see my other blogs on this theme by clicking on “Clutter” in the TAG CLOUD).

This time I am onto bank paperwork.    It merits special attention because there is so much of it and of course it is highly confidential.   It is also essential to keep it secure at all times. For this reason all the banks mentioned in my blog have had their names jumbled up, encoded and encrypted.

Bank papers always arrive in the post in plain A4 white envelopes, which look like letters from banks.    That’s not exactly secure — Oops!     They usually contain at least 5 pages, only 1 of which has any useful information.     The other four pages are incomprehensible, legalistic jargon and list all the things the bank is not responsible for —- including how they calculate their interest rates.  I think they put two fingers in the air and just think of a number 🙂

We have lots of banks and lots of bank accounts to spread the risk of losing all our disappearing savings in one go if one of our banks goes bust !    The problem with this approach is that we get lots of letters from banks.     In my office each bank has a separate box file and by the end of each year they are full of statements, financial reports and promotional literature — 90% of which I have not read.     Don’t let this mislead any burglar reading this blog into thinking we have loads of money, there is no money to be had —— just paper.

Here s a typical example, from let’s call it — the Worthless Paper Bank :-

• an opening page with sort codes, which I can’t sort out 😟 ; International account numbers with 16 digits which I will never be able to copy down correctly if I ever need it.   What’s more I did not know I had an international account.   And then the one thing that would be useful to see is a date but —– no date, definitely no date.
• a second page with all ONE of my transactions last month,  plus on the back a list of disclaimers designed to absolve the bank from any responsibility for anything.
• the final page is a summary of the fist two pages, just in case I didn’t read it,  plus another copy of the disclaimers.
• at one time I used to get two copies of all of this, but fortunately the bank ran out of trees and discontinued the extra copy some time ago.

All my other banks have similar variations of the above format but since there is not standardisation, you invariably struggle each time another set of paperwork turns up.  I now have a wall full of bulging box files.     All of this to look after my old age pension.      Seems a bit over the top, don’t you think?

It is all supposed to be kept for 7 years, so the tax man says, which makes storing it even more of a challenge.   The obvious solution is on-line banking, but with my computer skills that is about as secure as putting all my money under the mattress.    One wrong press of a key and I could be bankrupt !

Since this paperwork is all so hyper confidential, what the heck do I do with it ?    I could shred it but that would take days.      I could burn it but that would upset all my neighbours.      I could eat it like James Bond with a secret file, but that doesn’t sound like a very good Christmas dinner.

Has anybody got any good ideas on what to do with it all ?

There will be a copy of Walt Hopkins’ book — “Seven Ways to Lighten Your Life Before You Kick the Bucket” –— for the best ideas on de-cluttering.

Rain forests have been sacrificed, my office is clogged up, no interest is shown or paid !

I did all this on Christmas Eve and it was an incredibly boring and frustrating couple of hours.      I’m done with bank statements for now.

Merry Christmas!

My de-cluttering continues a day at a time and another small step towards clutter freedom.  (You can see my other blogs on this theme by clicking on “Clutter” in the TAG CLOUD).

Today I turn my attention to the top drawer of one of my office desks.    The one I can’t open without a fight.

At one time I must have been thinking of setting up a new branch of Staples the stationers, because I seem to have accumulated an awful lot of things I must have needed once.    But obviously not twice, or three times, or four times, or more.

I have five staplers and seven boxes of staples.  I think some of them came out of Christmas crackers a few years ago.     Most of the staples are the wrong size and don’t fit the stapler.    I also have three staple removers.    Gosh at one time I must have had a lot of fun with staples.    Now I need to go on a staple diet.

Then there are the hole punches, four of them.    Enough to make 10,000 holes in Blackburn Lancashire —— or bags of confetti for the next Royal wedding 😄

And pins  —- drawing pins, red round-headed pins, blue, green, yellow, white and black headed pins.    And paper clips by the box full.   And blue tack.   And  crocodile clips.   And glue in tubes and in bottles.   Oh and finally sellotape, rolls and rolls of it.    I could pin, stick, staple and clip for the European Parliament, although on second thoughts I would probably require even more pins for that !

Then I found a comb, goodness knows why it’s there since I haven’t needed a comb for years 🙂

Not quite finished yet.   I have got rulers —- several rulers, all of them in feet and inches, maybe I could export them to America?  At least somebody still uses imperial measures !

A locked combination lock, with a long forgotten combination.    Could be useful as a training aid for trainee safe-crackers.

Finally, still on my first office drawer,  I find two ivory chop sticks!   Not quite sure what they are doing there, but I think they are quite valuable, because along with a lot of writing in Chinese there is an English translation “Empress of China”.    I do not remember meeting her, perhaps it was when we had a Chinese take-away last week.

It looks like this could be another addition to the school box, although I think I’ll leave out the old comb and I still need a polite idea for the chopsticks.

There will be a copy of Walt Hopkins’ book — “Seven Ways to Lighten Your Life Before You Kick the Bucket” –— for the best ideas on de-cluttering.

My de-cluttering saga continues.  (You can see my other blogs on this theme by clicking on “Clutter” in the TAG CLOUD).

I don’t know why I have so many pens.   I seem to have hundreds of them, scattered all over the place.    But the amazing thing is I can never find one when I want one.

So now I am into de-cluttering in a big way, I am going to set about today and sort out my pens (and pencils and marker pens and felt tip pens and every other writing implement) and when I say pens I really mean biros.

So my first step should be to gather them all together, but I will need a clear space before I start and that in itself is a challenge !

Desk top cleared, here we go :-

I start with my pen drawer where all the pens ought to be —- there are at least 60 black biros in the drawer which I use for most things.  I am sure there are still more to find all around the house.   Then I also find 1 lonely black felt tip, plus a load of photos which are obviously in the wrong place but I won’t look at them or I’ll be here for hours.

My desk tidy or more properly called my “desk untidy”— I have 3 desk untidies, plus  a tray of odds and sods, plus a small flower vase all full of assorted pens and pencils, 3 staplers with no staples, plus pins, paper clips, big and small crocodile clips and scissors.   The last thing it does is make my desk look tidy !    It just looks a mess and I haven’t even mentioned the large hole punch, the 3 foot folding ruler, the sellotape and the post it notes which don’t fit in the desk tidies, so they get moved around the desk top all the time.

Now for the office desk drawer —– this has all of the above items and more.  Parcel tape stuck firmly to the bottom of the drawer, invisible tape – what was that for?, a pencil sharpener that I must have last used in school, almost fossilised blue tack and white tack, floppy disks which were obsolescent before I learnt how to use them😟

I spread everything out on the desk top.    I could run a school with all of this, or at least open a pop up branch of Staples.   I fill one desk tidy with a sample of each thing I might need and  put the pins and paper clips into containers in the drawer.   I throw away all the duplicate rulers, the round the world collection of hotel pens, three now empty desk tidies, two pencil sharpeners, and two fountain pens with a bottle of Quink ink, which have secretly been waiting to be discovered on Antiques Roadshow.

Now all I am left with is about 200 pens.    The ones I set out to sort hours ago.  First I ditch the round the world collection of hotel pens, then most of the pencils go in the bin.   I keep all the black biros, they should last me till about 2036.    I also hang onto all the Stabilo felt tip pens just to remind me of my glittering architectural career.

Finally, I am left with about ten pens with my father’s insurance brokers brand name.   I remember Dad was very proud of those pens. He had lots and lots of them that he used to give away to all his clients.

At last it dawns on me.   Pig Pens Disease must be hereditary, that’s where I got all this pen hoarding from 😄.  It’s all my Dad’s fault.

So has anybody got any good ideas for disposing of  lots of pens ?????

There will be a copy of Walt Hopkins’ book — “Seven Ways to Lighten Your Life Before You Kick the Bucket” — for the best ideas on de-cluttering.

Good morning Doctor

I am sorry to bother you again, but I seem to have a recurring problem with my clutter disorder.   You may recall that when I came to see you four years ago, you  prescribed a shed for my  condition.   (You can see my previous symptoms by clicking on the Archive for January 2012).   Sadly my shed is now full of even more clutter and in spite of repeated efforts on my part the clutter will not go away.  

Goodness knows I have tried.   In 2013 I  got rid of  a lot of socks and ties, but now my sock drawers are overflowing again and I do miss those ties 😂.     See my blog ”  Clutter-head” by clicking on October 2013 in the Archive.

I made another brave effort only two years later in 2015, when I thinned out all the kitchen drawers and cupboards.   Remember all those useless, unused gadgets I had accumulated  — I still don’t know what many of them were for?    Then there were the half full bottles and long past their sell-by date cans  —-  I have not missed any of them.     That was a colossal effort, which seemed to help for a while, but gradually the  drawers are full to bursting again and the cupboard shelves are double stacked so that things regularly fall out when you open a door.

Dear Doctor, I think this cluttering must be a bug of some sort or maybe a virus, because it seems to keep coming back.    You will see from my blog in October this year, that I think I might have Pig Pen’s Disease, have you heard of it?    Do you know if there is a cure for PPD?     If you don’t have an answer could you please refer me to a specialist, because my problem has been going on for years and I do not seem to be getting any better.

It may be best if you could refer me to a de-cluttering specialist.  I don’t know if you can get them on the NHS?  I really don’t think another shed would solve the issue, although I must thank you for trying.

Yours sincerely, from the bottom of a heap of clutter

John