It’s spring—at least where I live, in Arizona.

Friends that do what they call “spring cleaning,” disposing of the clutter and mess associated with the winters months. Me? Well, my husband and I love to buy homes and renovate them, so we are usually ready to find a new project house and move anywhere from March to May each year. We joke with each other and say, “The windows need cleaned. It’s about time to move!”

I know. I know. It would be so much easier just to get a bucket of water and squeegee those windows, huh?

At any rate, on a somewhat smaller scale, I need to focus on my home office. It is in dire need of reorganization—all to be done, of course, in the honor of my favorite season of the year—spring!

If you are like me, an organized desk and supply closet results in an organized mind, which results in more meaningful work accomplished.  You might not think so, but just little things like cleaning out and organizing my pen/pencil container can be the catalyst for a story about a…oops, I digress from the subject at hand.

A list should keep me focused:

1) Put all reference materials, including my Thesaurus, back on the same shelf.

2) Put marketing/publishing materials into folders and refile.

3) Take out bits of paper, napkins, and gum wrappers with story ideas collected all winter and add them to the master list in “Future Stories” file.

4) Go through writing-related books. Type notes from the ones I have read. Put the books I’ve not yet read into a stack, front and center on the shelf, so I see them every day.

5) Put books no longer needed/wanted into a box and into the trunk of the car headed for a Goodwill store or share with my critique group.

6) Go through my supply cupboard, making a list of supplies such as copy paper, ink, notepads, etc.

7) Treat myself for getting this far, by going to the mall to pick up items in #6 and then having a mid-week lunch with my sister before returning home.

8) Arrange supplies just purchased on closet shelves—oops, first organize shelves, putting things that are out of place back where they belong—now, for the addition of the new fashion-colored Post-it-notes…

9) Go through old phone messages, to-do-lists that are only half done, and throw away or consolidate onto one page, if possible.

10) Locate the “new” pictures of the grandkids received at Christmas and replace the framed ones on my desk.

11) Dust/vacuum.

There. Ready for the new year.

I sit for a minute, looking at my clean desk and organized shelves. The adrenaline starts to flow, just like clockwork. An idea for a new book chapter begins to take shape when my husband calls to me from the sofa where he has been putting in some serious time on the I-Pad. Seems he’s found a “fixer-upper” for sale just a few miles away.

I may not have to clean the windows this spring after all!!!!!