Proper places

On Saturday I tidied up my room, and all weekend it’s felt wonderful having a mostly empty floor to walk on, instead of having to negotiate my way through piles of books and papers. It’s great, but at the same time I know that before long it’ll degenerate into an entropic jungle. It’s almost as if the floor grows clutter, like a fungus.

And so I got to thinking, how do I keep it the way it is? What’s the trick? (For those of you who don’t suffer from clutteritis, this’ll probably be painfully obvious. Bear with me. :))

The trick, I think, is having a place for everything and making sure you put it there.

For me, the piles start to develop when I’ve got a pile of envelopes or receipts or something that need to go somewhere, but I don’t really have an established place for them, so they go on the floor. Or I’ll be in a hurry and plop a book down instead of putting it back on the shelf, and before I know it, it’s attracted more books, accio-ing them left and right without my knowledge.

But if I had a spot where envelopes and receipts were supposed to go, and I put them there every time I got them, there’d be no buildup. And if I put the book back on the shelf, it’d never pile up. Likewise, all of those to-do items I record on index cards lest I forget? The ones I do forget because I only review them every couple weeks? If I had a set place to put them (which I do, my wiki, but where on the wiki is a different question) and just unloaded them there every day, I’d never get this sprawling to-do list mayhem.

I’m going to give it a shot and see what happens. :)

I have a place for everything, but the problem is that place is everywhere I want it to be, so I still have piles and piles

For all those envelopes and receipts that you hold on to for awhile, may I suggest an old shoe box on the shelf of your closet or under your bed with easy access? Works like a charm for me.

I find that good intentions are quickly abandoned. In fact, I think there is something poetic and symbolic about a messy room. I’ve recently noticed the the state of my desk parallels the state of my life; when I notice that my desk is getting too cluttered to do anything useful with it, it’s time for a change. (On my desk and in my life.)

If my room were consistently clean, then I’d have no way to tell that my life is a clutter. I would be simmering in stressful living and wouldn’t think to get out until I ended up spontaneously bursting into tears in the JFSB Quad.

And furthermore, I think that using art and psychology to justify my bad habits is among the most genius ideas ever!

Steve: Haha. I don’t think that’s what I meant. :P

e: Good idea — and the easy access part is crucial, I think. If it’s tucked up in a closet somewhere, odds are I’m not going to bother.

Xister: Haha, you win. :P But it still feels so good to walk around a clean room.

I hear ya. I try really hard to be neat and clean, but usually it works itself out in levels: my living room is clean and tidy, my bedroom comfortably lived in, my spare room, well, we won’t go there.

I recently read a very funny essay called “Neat People vs. Sloppy People” by Suzanne Britt (it appears in her collection Show and Tell and in the Bedford Reader). She says,

“I’ve finally figured out the difference between neat people and sloppy people. The distinction is, as always, moral. Neat people are lazier and meaner than sloppy people.

“Sloppy people, you see, are not really sloppy. Their sloppiness is merely the unfortunate consequence of their extreme moral rectitude. Sloppy people carry in their mind’s eye a heavenly vision, a precise plan, that is so stupendous, so perfect, it can’t be achieved in this world or the next.

“Sloppy people live in Never-Never Land. Someday is their metier. Someday they are planning to alphabetize all their books and set up home catalogues [she makes a long list of all the things they will do someday]…

“For all these noble reasons and more, sloppy people never get neat. They aim too high and too wide. They save everything, planning someday to file, order, and straighten our the world. But while these ambitious plans take clearer and clearer shape in their heads, the books spill from the shelves on the floor, the clothes pile up in the hamper or closet, the family mementos accumulate in ever drawer…”

Anyhow, your post reminded me of this essay. She is pretty funny derailing neat people in the second half. So if you are looking for a little self-justification in the midst of your desire to keep clean, remember, it is not sloppiness, but a high moral rectitude, according to Suzanne Britt :).

LOL, I like that — thanks for sharing! :)