I am embarrassed to admit this, but last night I threw a Class A temper tantrum. Complete with pounding my fists on the floor. Of course I was laying on the floor, under my desk at the time trying to untangle my kitten from the computer/cable/printer/adding machine wires that she was playing with.

I stood up - bumping my head on the way - to an office filled with papers, notebooks, catalogues, books, files, organizing devices that simply CLUTTER UP MY LIFE!!!

If you office out of your home, I think you know what I mean.

Okay, first off, for the smart aleck that just said, "Your home office should be a sanctuary devoted to your business and your home life shouldn't cross the threshold." I have three words for you.

Kiss my grits.

I KNOW that the home stuff has no business in here. But my daughter decided she wanted her computer in my office to be close to me. What am I suppose to say, "no?"

So I have Jesse McCartney and Hilary Duff CDs and school papers and Scout files and craft magazines and crayons and somewhere under all this CLUTTER are the files for my current work projects.

So last night as I'm writing a press release for a customer, my kitten decides to pull my modem down off my desk and on to the floor and get tangled up in the string cheese that hides beneath. By the way, that 'string cheese' was a metaphor; my office is cluttered, not dirty.

Thus the reason for being on the floor under my desk in the first place.

I left the office, cat in tow, closed the door and tried to put the mess out of my mind.

This morning over my first cup of coffee I found manna in the form of an article in the Akron Beacon Journal. Ron Stallings, a columnist representing SCORE, wrote an article entitled "keep the clutter out of the office."

He featured Carol Halsey, an organizing coach out of Wilsonville, OR who suggests a 5-step approach:

• Discard
• Refer
• Act
• File
• Table

Well, I just finished with the desk tops and the piles on the floor. Just the thought of opening the drawers gives me the shivers - it is time for lunch.

But I must say - the act of clearing off the desk tops by filing, pitching and organizing has left me with a CAN DO attitude.

Right now, I can do a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

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