in my last place i had a room that sounds like your boy’s room. it was supposed to be my home office but was really the dumping ground for everything i didn’t want to look at. the door was frequently shut. in fact, it was so bad, the day i moved out of that apartment, i left the door shut and dealt with it later before the lease was up. the reason that room was so bad was because i didn’t handle the papers that crossed my hands while they were in my hands. the mail pile from the day would turn into the mail pile from the month. the “to reads” and the coupons and all the other paper clutter that’s so easily accumulated wasn’t dealt with. my humble advice is to make a plan for what to do with the new stuff (ie- only touch it once. decide immediately what to do with it and do it- recycle, file, etc) and take 20 mins (set a timer) every day for a few days and just take a pile in your dump room and deal with whatever you touch for 20 mins. have easy boxes too- for recycle, trash, etc. and get yourself a little box with files to file things; you can re-file them into your bigger system later, but if you’re like me, your new system will be that one little box and everything else will find it’s way to the recycling.

as for the technology- i find out about new things through playing, reading, tweeting, and asking. i’d start with those; specifically asking. are there any cool tech people you admire in your life? talk to them. otherwise, just read about the things you’re interested in and see how new tech might apply to different things you’re working on. think both inside and outside the box, if you will.

there’s always time for life. we just have to start saying “no” more and pruning back the things we don’t have time for anymore. Merlin Mann said, “You eventually learn that true priorities are like arms; if you think you have more than a couple, you’re either lying or crazy.” and i wholeheartedly believe that. What are your REAL priorities? not the things you’re “supposed” to do, but the things YOU want to do? Make time for those things and get rid of the rest. and read The power of less (http://thepowerofless.com/) by the author of the zen habits blog. i suggest the audio version to listen to on the way to work. it will change your life. seriously.

:-)

Clutter – I’m not so bad at work, because I clear things off fairly regularly, but at home things are terrible. Well, they’re better since my kids are too old to play with toys, but I can’t stand to look in my boys’ room. It’s ground zero. Then there’s all the mail, all the papers lying around… Ugh.

Technology – I feel I need to know more about it in order to be a contemporary librarian. I worry our positions will go the way of the dinosaur if we don’t keep up. I’m not afraid of computers at all, but I don’t even know what I need to know. That would be the first step. Where do I find that out?

Speed of life – Oh, man. I could go on forever about this! A lot of this is related to how much information is readily accessible now, and how many interests I have. I’m also finishing graduate school, work part-time, have a family, maintain a blog and review books. Is there time to have a life? Growing up there was always spare time. Where did it go?