I think clutter is just a series of projects that are approximately one to two steps away from completion. I'm looking around my house, which isn't cluttered to hoarder level, but has a few piles here and there that I would love to have magically organized into the places in which I envision them.
The closest example: to my left is a pile of stuff. The inventory: a stack of gift cards that belong to JD that we're going to use toward a new XBox; a box of Sharpies from which I took one to write down the value of each gift card but haven't returned. Those are on top of a stack of papers: my new property tax bill, an packet that I need to scan and forward to another person, a tax form 1099 that I need to scan, a sheet from the bank that holds my HELOC that I have to file that says that they've assigned a new account number to the loan, two unpaid medical bills, a schedule for the construction rehab project I'm working on with my uncle, a sheet with notes that I took during a discussion with a financial planner, a keyboarding mastery chart for JD to learn how to type, some pictures that need to be cut and framed, my marathon bib from the 2016 Chicago Marathon, and the water bill that was paid and needs to be filed.
Every item on the list is one or two steps away from being completed - and they're not complicated steps! The most complicated ones are either where I need to scan something then file it away or go online and pay something and then file it away. It's an, "I'll get to it . . ." pile.
And, let's not allow the fact that I probably could have completed a great number of the tasks associated in the time it's taken me to write this post to be lost.
