{an *ah-ha* moment}

have you ever noticed that some things seem to jump out at you at just the right time. recently i've been very overwhelmed and saddened by the state of my scrapbook studio. i'm so lucky to have an entire room to serve as my studio/office. but it doesn't even come close to meeting my needs, and often feels like it inhibits me more than helps me (creatively speaking). anyone that's seen my room and knows how much i love it, will probably find that statement surprising.

there are two issues of which i'm well aware:

1) the room is a "crap catcher" in our house...everyone has one - it may be a drawer, a table, a corner, or in our case...an entire room. when the house needs a quick clean-up...it goes to my room. when i go shopping, the bags get dumped there. papers to file. things to organize. projects to start. projects to finish. future gifts. you name it. it's there. right now i can hardly walk in there. but even when it's clean...something isn't right. and guess what...when the floor is covered in crap, not only is hard for me to work, there is no way i can bring a curious baby in there with me...see the problem?

2) i have too much stuff. this may be sacriligious to say for most scrapbookers. but seriously, i have too much scrapbooking stuff. it's time to let go.

it's turns out that i actually have three issues....

today, i was catching up on some old posts via google reader (which deserves a separate blog post of it's own), and i came across two posts, on separate blogs that really "spoke to me".

first i ran across this post on stacy julian's blog (written earlier this week):
midweek muse on multitasking

this post made me realize that despite that my room is incredibly organized, it doesn't allow projects to flow through it! this is the quote that really hit me:
"maybe it's not organization of actual product, but organization of process and progress that could help you get more done - especially when it's stuff you really want to do!"

later, i came across this post on write.click.scrapbook:
Fit Your Space to Your Process

this just confirmed the whole concept (though the post was actually written a couple weeks earlier). timing is everything because i doubt that this post would've had much affect on me, had i not read stacy's post earlier the same day.

so, anyway... i still have a serious lack of time and a trashed room - not sure when that'll get fixed, but the thing that is making me feel warm*fuzzy inside is that at least i now have an understanding of what's wrong.