Like many of my contemporaries, I had a collection of things (drawings, sports photos, awards, short essays, and so on) from when my two children were growing up and still at home. In my case, one wall of my study was covered in family memorabilia. Not organized in any way, just accumulated as the years went by. The last memento was pinned up over ten years ago.

We now have grandchildren, and the oldest (3) is starting to produce some pretty stunning works of art. The others will be sure to follow soon, and their pieces obviously deserve to be displayed. I decided it was time to retire the first generation’s creations.

Down came my daughter’s painting of a dogwood tree, my son’s soccer pictures and my coach’s medallions, a newspaper clipping about one of Lindsey’s mission trips, and a wall full of other creations.

When the wall was bare and what had hung there was safely stored away in a hermetically sealed container, I looked around the study. When I got to my desk, I said to myself the four most dangerous words connected to any project. While I’m at it, I thought, I should probably clean out that desk. The top is almost bare, and there are only six drawers. It shouldn’t take too much more time; how hard could it be?

“While I’m at it.” After all these years, I still keep doing this to myself.

Two hours later, the paper recycling box in my study was overflowing, the trash can was half full, and I had three of those “I’ll decide about this thing later” piles scattered around. The desk was more or less done and a shelf just to the left of the desk should really have been the next thing to tackle, but I was able to resist. After all, I am retired, and as a friend of mine recently said, a retired person should only do one or two things a day. Certainly no more than that.

Jim Hartsell is the author of the Boone series, available at his website, housemountainviews.com. You can also listen to Jim’s reading of the first book in the series, “Pushing Back,” on his podcast, found at housemountainviews.podbean.com. A new chapter comes out every Wednesday morning.