3rd Step Continued: Clean work top
Third Step Continued: Where to Start?
Confused?
Clip art from Microsoft Word, modified.
Have you ever faced a chore — and let’s face it, if your desk looks even remotely like mine [see prior post], straightening the mess out is a chore. So-o-o-o-o, have you ever faced a chore where you just stood wondering where to even start.
Personally I think this is one of the BIG secrets of professionals who are hired to cleanup any kind of mess — including genealogy. A professional may be dismayed at what they are seeing but they know two things we amateur “Mess-iens” don’t know: (1) where to start and (2) what to do!
When we don’t know where to start, we waste time doing bits here and there but really accomplishing little. So here we go…
Start with a clean “desk” top – or at least mostly clean. 
Your “desk” top = your “work” top.
Your “work” top = your “desk” top
whether you have a real desk or not.
- Put any genealogy papers in a stack. If they can be put in the right folder, do so. If not, then at least get the genealogy hard copies in one stack. Do NOT READ the papers. Identify it as genealogy & add to the stack. Stay focused.
- For me a surname folder contains papers, etc. that are associated with that surname. A folder will rarely contain an original artifact. Therefore, if I have a print-out that pertains to a specific surname,I can just add it to the front or back of the folder.The goal is that content in the folder will be entered into the appropriate database after verification. I also have some county/state folders.
- Shred and/or throw away junk mail.
- Toss any catalog that is (a) not recent and (b) you will never buy anything from it. If is particularly fascinating, how about making it ‘bathroom’ reading.[pullquote position="right"]Catalogs are like rabbits. They multiply. Any holiday increases the flow rate into your house.[/pullquote]
- Keep catalogs that are useful. [As time goes by, you will probably find yourself tossing more and more of these.]
- Books & magazines – put on a shelf or in a drawer. Genealogy magazines should (could) be “stacked” or in folders in month/year order with all like magazines together.
- Why? Because who wants to look through 2 or 3 years of magazines for that article you just saw a “couple of months”. By putting all “Family Tree” magazines together in month/year older, you can find the article fairly quickly.
- Anything on your “desktop” that needs to be somewhere else in the house – remove it from your area…your “office”. It would be better to go put it up right then *if* you know where it belongs.
Your goal: to have a work top that
isn’t covered from one side to the other with “stuff”.
Which do I do first?
It does not matter.
It only matters that you have backed up your database & have compacted it–those are *MUST DO’s*. And that you have a fairly clean desk|work top. For example, if you have a wood desk, you should be able to see what color the wood is without having to look at the sides or front of the desk.
Do you have to have a clean work area before proceeding to database cleanup? No, but I truly believe you’ll make more progress if your desk|work top does not reflect the messiness of your data.
1st Step to Clean Up a Genealogy Mess: Backup.
2nd Step to Clean Up a Genealogy Mess: Compact Database.
3rd Step to Clean Up Your Genealogy: Straighten Out Work Area.
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Jodi — I loved your reply. I can now say to my hubby “See! I’m not the ONLY one!”
How I wish I had taken a picture of my kitchen desk before I cleaned it up just this last week. I didn’t tell my hubby I was doing it. Bigger impact.
And if I didn’t get it done …we won’t go there. After all, that’s never happened before.
Does your kitchen desk have a “hole” under the middle drawer? These “holes” tend to just scream for ‘THROW IT HERE!’ and it ends up being an underneath-the-kitchen-desk-drawer-but-where-everyone-can-see-it mess.
What I’m trying (& we’ll see how well it works) is to use one of the plastic totes with a design that is so popular today. It helps that I got two for Christmas presents. So one tote is now used to collect the plastic bags for recycling. The other tote for those things that I need to take to genealogy library that used to end up in umpteen places in the house.
I’m going to write about this in a future post because my cleaning off the kitchen desk is actually part of my genealogy mess cleanup even though I don’t do genealogy there. Can’t wait for your opinion on that post.
Well, I’ll start with the fact that Hubby was most certainly impressed, and it certainly helped my out having a clean surface! Now, if I could just get it to stay that way. I got sidetracked with a major database issue using my FTM2012 SYNC feature, oh my goodness, still trying to fix that mess, but I’m still here with you!
As to the desk, it has a pull out space for the keyboard and mouse, so I can use the desktop space for my binders I am trying to digitize, but it also has plenty of cubbies and a shelf that is currently housing 3 big binders and some of Great Aunt’s bulky folders alongside the printer and other miscellany that easily gets out of control. I also have to share the space with the kids’ art supplies which, naturally, are plentiful and under lock and key…
Keep up the great work and motivation!
Ahhhhhhh the FTM Sync. I’ve finally figured out how to make it behave 99% of the time. That is going to be a post in the future. Have to get folks to the point where they are deleting those folks in their tree that do not belong there.
Fortunately my “kids” space comes and goes depending on whether my grandchildren are here.
I’ve been reading along since the start, as I also received a massive collection of someone else’s extremely hard work! My problem is that when the laptop died, we opted for an all-in-one desktop since we have a Kindergartner. Long story short, sort of, computer is set up in the kitchen at a desk, whilst my own collection and that of my Great Aunt’s are housed in a large bookcase unit, 20+ binders, 2 fileboxes and a filing cabinet in our bedroom upstairs. Needless to say, between being a natural “stacks-‘n-pile-tis” creator, and my habit of going where the wind blows sweetest, I end up with a huge mess on the desk. Reading your posts today got me motivated enough to do a pretty big overhaul on the desk, my husband might even be impressed! Thank you and I look forward to cleaning up my collection along with you!