I was reading in my den a few nights ago and realized I had stacks of papers, articles, books and magazines lying in a semi-circle around my chair. Looking around, I noticed that I had two “current reading” folders of things printed off the Web (I still like to read off paper) brought down from my upstairs office.
And these weren’t just the typical current reading one usually has lying around the favorite chair – some of them were more than three months old. I realized this when my wife hinted rather subtly that perhaps it was time to shorten the stacks, or better yet, move them to the upstairs office – something about dusting and vacuuming being hindered by the piles (now no longer “stacks”).
I thought I should go upstairs and make room before I started the heavy lifting (yep, there was that much). To my surprise, I had no reading of any kind on my desk, only client, project and other files I was working on. Even I could see that something’s going on here I hadn’t thought about before.