Where The EFF Is My Wallet‽ The way of harmonious order

It’s Monday morning, somewhere between 8 and 8:30am. Your phone just dinged to notify you that your Lyft/Uber is downstairs, and you’re heading toward the front door, quickly checking your pockets for your keys, phone, and wallet.

Your wallet.
Back pocket?
Empty.
Inside jacket pocket.
Empty.

You take off your bag,
open it,
rummage inside.
Not there.

Frustrated, you hurriedly brush loose papers off your desk hoping to spot the frayed black rectangle underneath.

Not there either.

Your phone dings to let you know that Edward will be departing soon.

You’re cursing out loud, and, at the last moment, you spin around to see, wedged between a bottle of dietary supplements that doesn’t belong on the bookshelf and the book that does, the little black Where’s Waldo.

Finally.

Maybe Edward is still waiting at the curb. Maybe you will get to work on time-ish. But you’re rattled. You’ve lost some degree of your composure, and the day is only starting. You haven’t even gotten to work yet, and you’re already feeling like you’re due for a break. You already feel somewhat defeated.

This is what it means to live with clutter. If you could relate to my anecdote, you’re far from alone.

Everyone loves to chew on some juicy statistics – it’s the intersection of math and gossip – so let me give you some alarming stats about clutter, courtesy of Kathy McEwan, who runs a professional decluttering service:

84% of Americans report being disorganized to the point of feeling stressed about it,

54% say that they are overwhelmed by clutter, and

78% have no plan for dealing with it.

25% are late for work because they can’t find a necessary item, and, get a load of this,

25% of people have incurred late fees because they can’t find the bill.

All because they have stuff that they use without putting away afterwards. Because they let things pile up instead of throwing them away. Because they buy more things than they can store properly, even if they did have the wherewithal to put them away promptly after each use. Not only do they (we, really) have more stuff than they can take responsibility for, they have more stuff than they actually use.

The oft-referenced Pareto distribution, more commonly known as the 80/20 rule, applies to possessions as well: we use the same 20% of our stuff 80% of the time. Or more. A great deal of what we have effectively serves no purpose but to get in the way of us accessing and utilizing and caring for the things we actually need.

I’m sorry but that’s just crazy. You know it and I know it – this is unhealthy and abnormal. If you’re anything like most people (you probably are, and that’s actually fine), you know damn well this is the case, and you’re probably a little embarrassed about it.

I go in waves with being on top of this myself. Some days are better than others. However, I’ve mostly gotten on top of this, and my bad days today are better than what my best days used to be. I’m gonna show you how to make a similar change in just a moment.

Before I go on, I want to clarify the issue of scope. What I’m not going to do today is make a case for minimalism. I’m not going to tell you that you should change the way you live, or change your value system.

I’m not here to criticize you for being “materialistic.” Material possessions can promote positive feelings of

comfort,
security,
ownership,
agency,
and convenience.

I embrace these feelings and I have nothing but gratitude for the physical possessions which impart them. My high minded books are just material possessions at the end of the day, just like my guitars. I didn’t always have them – I’m glad I do now.

But your possessions, the stuff contained within the walls of your home, should never be a source of stress.

What I’m going to advocate for today is that you accept a certain maintenance cost that you pay, with your time and energy, in exchange for your sanity: meaning, you keep your floors and desks and drawers tidy, and your home promotes mental health. The extent to which it falls into disarray is the extent to which your own domain, your own kingdom, silently militates against you, draining you of morale, focus, optimism, and your sense of agency.

Your home is supposed to recharge you.

I’m happy to say, even proud, if I may, that I live in a kind of heaven of my own making. I have a small but very orderly apartment filled with luscious green plants, books, paintings, musical instruments, and enough space to enjoy them. When I look across my room to see my guitars and plants resting on top of my amplifiers, all beneath an enormous printing of Breugel’s Tower of Babel, I see an environment that reminds me of who I wish to be, and continually steers me toward the fulfillment of those aspirations. It feels refined, elevated, comforting, and entirely of my own making. The kind of place you would see and say, “it totally makes sense that you live here.”

I said two important things there: it’s small, and I have enough space. Both those statements are true because I do not tolerate clutter. Am I perfect in my fastidiousness? No. But tidying up my home has become an activity that I regard in exactly the same way I regard showering, brushing and flossing, and grooming: these are the operating costs for starting and ending my day.

Keeping things clean and orderly keeps me feeling in control of my world. It makes me capable of seeing myself as someone with self respect, dignity, purpose, and poise. My life matters to the extent that I treat it like something that matters. The easiest way to do that is by cleaning, decluttering, and organizing.

Here’s what to do.

What follows now is a series of principles for you to adopt. Modify them as needed, and consider enlisting a professional if my advice is insufficient, but this should be a perfectly reasonable place to start for most people.

Daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning.

10-15 minutes of tidying up, every evening, should be sufficient to keep your home orderly. When you draft your written to do lists for each day, always include “tidy up” as the beginning of your evening routine. Put it in your calendar, set an alarm, and pick out music to put on as you clean. Some kind of lofi instrumental hip hop/electronica usually works wonders. Repetitive, soothing, crisp and hypnotic: that’s what usually gets me into the proper frame of mind.

Designate one day a week for laundry. Make this an invariable commitment. I never have that much laundry to do because I do it weekly like clockwork. Again, this is in my calendar, with notifications set to ding ding ding me into action.

Fold it the second it comes out of the drier. Make your sock and underwear drawer look immaculate. You will be immensely pleased with yourself.

Twice a month, wash all your bedding.
Once a month, vacuum everything.
Once a month, clean all glass surfaces and doorknobs.

What if this isn’t enough?

If you implement this weekly, biweekly, and monthly cleaning and decluttering schedule, it should feel good to spend time at home.

Another thing that should happen if you follow this program is the recognition that more is needed.

If you pursue your interests, grow and evolve, you’ll probably collect more possessions as a result, directly or indirectly. I’m quickly amassing more books than I have space for, and it won’t be long before I have to purchase another bookshelf.

You probably have a similar situation on the horizon. There is only so much that tidying, organizing, and routine cleaning can accomplish: you may need a hardware upgrade.

Perhaps, before you move on from reading this article (thank you, by the way), you might take a moment to acknowledge the nature of the next purchase you will have to make, and even begin browsing on Amazon (or equivalent) now.

Procrastination breeds self contempt.

Contempt and Gratitude: the two wings of the orderly bird.

Life is about more than merely following prescribed routines because they are effective. The reason they are effective is because they are rational responses to valid emotions.

When you are in a cluttered, cramped, unclean space, I want you to recognize your contempt for such a place. Recognize the feeling of your precious mental energy, the jewel of your thinking mind, becoming entangled in the madness that is clutter, like an insect caught in the web of a spider. A sane person acts on this contempt, just as a sane person rests when tired, and eats when hungry.

When you recognize your contempt for disorder, and act on it, immediately if possible, you are acting like someone on the side of life – you are resisting and forestalling the entropic forces in your environment, the chief of which is death. This is what it means to choose life, to choose harmonious order and growth and overcome decay and deterioration.

Similarly, I want you to dote on your possessions like you would dote on a puppy. Look at what these things do for you. Look at the way they perfectly hold their structures, holding steady as you remove the dirt from them, obeying the will that brought them into form by holding your books, your clothing, your documents, and so on.

Our ancestors had nothing of the kind. Each of us has things that people could have scarcely imagined a hundred years ago. And, a hundred years is nothing. In 1940, a third of American homes didn’t have running water. Seriously.

Look at your furniture and your possessions and say “thank you,” with real fondness. See what you would otherwise take for granted, and show it care.

That’s all for today. Thank you for your time. Talk to you soon.

Jas