How Important Is It?

Not my office. No actual person is that neat, y'all.

I have something to tell you but first I need to ask you not to throw paper clips or pens or a tape dispenser at me. I just feel like you’re going to want to throw something office-related at me and even though that stuff can’t come through the wide, wide web, I’m pretty sure I’ll feel the vibes. So take a few calming breaths…ready?

I have two offices.

I know.

I KNOW.

If it makes you feel any better, I used to share an office with Mister Man and that was awful. We practically had to work in shifts, just to keep the peace. And then one of the Junior Halls finally moved out and I confiscated the desk and three bookcases in that room and used that space as an office. And then Mister Man up and died and so his office was empty. I didn’t like hanging out in there at first, but you know, it’s a really nice office and way bigger than the upstairs office. So yeah, I got over the heebie jeebies and I sorta moved his stuff out and now, I’m happily ensconced in the spacious office with the big desk.

But I didn’t move all my writing stuff down to my nice, big office. Basically, I brought my laptop. And as I’m ‘fessing up here, you might as well know that it wasn’t long before I sorta abandoned Precious the Laptop to the upstairs office and started using Mister Man’s sparkly new laptop.

I know.

I KNOW. It really is an embarrassment of riches (and after Precious has been so good to me!). But the point is, recently I decided to clean out the upstairs office and make that a bedroom again (because remember the whole bed thing?). So, I thought, I’ll just move anything important down to the big office. And here is where that title question comes in because every time I opened a drawer or tackled a book shelf or pulled out a binder, I asked myself, “How important is this?”

Honestly, that question floats around in my brain when it comes to just about anything in my life these days, but I suppose that literally, I said things like, “Why in the world did I make hard copies of every single thing I ever wrote?” (P.S. That’s where the binders came in. And P.P.S. There is A LOT of bad writing in those binders. Now all that bad writing has been transferred to an itty bitty flash drive.) Or “Look at all these boxes of different business cards! Did I ever actually give out my business card? (Well, yes, but more often, I forgot my cards. Or I changed up info so often that cards were outdated.)

That’s just the tip of the office iceberg; I’m still cleaning up and tossing out. And as I go, I’m constantly berating myself. Why did I waste so much time on stuff that wasn’t important? Because after every hour of clean-up, there’s very little that ends up in the nice, big office.

And you know what else? I don’t always work in the nice, big office. Turns out, when it comes to the important things in a writing career, all you really need is a bit of time, a good idea, and the discipline to write. (And a reliable laptop and wi-fi. We’re not barbarians, people.)

~Cathy C. Hall