Order and Serenity

OK here's where I stumbled on the concept that decluttering was essential to happiness. Of course I always knew this vaguely, kind of something that sometimes flits through your mind like a glowfly in the dark...but doesn't light upon anything, doesn't stay, doesn't put out little roots. So I continue/d to live in mess...which I would make feeble attempts to regulate sometimes once a week, sometimes once a month, sometimes once in two months (during which time everything had degenerated into a swirling mass of entropy, as Sheldon would say).



I bought "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin sometime at the beginning of this year. At least, I think it was the beginning. I remember looking at it many times before that and always having someone there to drag me away and say, you have enough books already...you gonna blow another RM100 on this one?

But some books are meant to be. So I waited till I was alone and then bought it. And in the very beginning, when her January project was about boosting energy, there it was...full front and central - DECLUTTER DECLUTTER DECLUTTER!

So here is the relevant excerpt. And good luck with your own decluttering projects. (the world is too much with us day and night...time to give some of it away);

Household disorder was a constant drain on my energy; the minute I walked through the apartment door, I felt as if I needed to start putting clothes in the hamper and gathering loose toys. I wasn't alone in my fight against clutter. In a sign that people are finding their possessions truly unmanageable, the number of storage units nationwide practically doubled in one decade. One study suggested that eliminating clutter would cut down the amount of housework in the average home by 40%.

To use the first month of my happiness project to tackle clutter seemed a bit small-minded, as if my highest priority in life were to rearrange my sock drawer. But I craved an existence of order and serenity - which, translated into real life, meant a household with coats hung in the closet and spare rolls of paper towels.

I was also weight down by the invisible, but even more enervating psychic clutter of loose ends. I had a long list of neglected tasks that made me feel weary and guilty whenever I thought of them. I needed to clear away the detritus in my mind.

I decided to tackle the visible clutter first, and I discovered something surprising: the psychologists and social scientists who do happiness research never mention clutter at all. They never raise it in their descriptions of the factors that contribute to happiness or in their lists of strategies to boost happiness. The philosophers, too, ignore it, although Samuel Johnson, who had an opinion about everything, did remark, "No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction."

By contrast, when I turned to popular culture, discussions of clutter clearing abounded. Whatever the happiness scientists might study, ordinary people are convinced that clearing clutter will boost their happiness - and they're "laying out money for domestic satisfaction" by buying Real Simple magazine, reading the Unclutterer blog, hiring California Closets, and practicing amateur feng shui. Apparently, other people, like me, believe that their physical surroundings influence their spiritual happiness.

I paced through our apartment to size up the clutter-clearing challenge I faced. Once I started really looking, I was amazed by how much clutter had accumulated without my realizing it. Our apartment was bright and pleasant, but a scum of clutter filmed its surface.

When I surveyed the master bedroom, for example, I was dismayed. The soft green walls and the rose-and-leaf pattern on the bed and curtains made the room calm and inviting, but stacks of papers were piled randomly on the coffee table and on the floor in the corner. Untidy heaps of books covered every available surface. CDs, DVDs, cords, chargers, coins, collar stays, business cards, and instruction booklets were scattered like confetti. Objects that needed to be put away, objects that didn't have a real place, unidentified lurking objects - they all needed to be placed in their proper homes. Or tossed or given away.

As I contemplate the magnitude of the job before me, I invoked my Tenth Commandment: "Do what ought to be done." This commandment distilled into one principle a lot of different strands of advice my mother had given me over the years. The fact is, I tend to feel overwhelmed by large tasks and am often tempted to try and make life easier by cutting corners.

We recently moved and beforehand, I was panicking at the thought of everything that needed to be done. What moving company should we use? Where could be buy boxes? How would our furniture fit into our new apartment building's tiny service elevator? I was paralyzed. My mother had her usual matter-of-fat, unruffled attitude, and she reminded me that I should just do what I knew I ought to do. "It won't really be that hard," she said reassuringly when I called her for a pep talk. "Make a list, do a little bit each day, and stay calm." Taking the bar exam, writing thank-you notes, having a baby, getting our carpets cleaned, checking endless footnotes as I was finishing my biography of Winston Churchill...my mother made me feel that nothing was insurmountable if I did what I knew I ought to be done, little by little.

My evaluation of our apartment revealed that my clutter came in several distinct varieties. First was nostalgic clutter, made up of relics I clung to from my earlier life. I made a mental note that I didn't need to keep the huge box of materials I used for the "Business and Regulation of Television" seminar I taught years ago.

Second was the self-righteous conservation clutter, made up of things that I've kept because they're useful - even though they're useless to me. Why was I storing twenty-three glass florist-shop vases?

One kind of clutter I saw in other people's homes but didn't suffer from myself was bargain clutter, which results from buying unnecessary things because they're on sale. I did suffer from related freebie clutter - the clutter of gifts, hand-me-downs, and giveaways that we didn't use. Recently my mother-in-law mentioned she was getting rid of one of their table lamps, and she asked if we wanted it.

"Sure," I said automatically. "it's a great lamp." But a few days later, I thought better of it. The lampshade wasn't right, the colour wasn't right, and we didn't really have a place to put it.

"Actually," I emailed her later, "we don't need the lamp. But thanks." I'd narrowly missed some freebie clutter.

I also had a problem with crutch clutter. These things I used but knew I shouldn't: my horrible green sweatshirt (bought secondhand more than ten years ago), my eight-year-old underwear with holes and frayed edges. This kind of clutter drove my mother crazy. "Why do you want to wear that?" she'd say. She always looked fabulous, while I found it difficult not to wear shapeless yoga pants and ratty white T-shirts day after day.

I felt particularly oppressed with aspirational clutter - things that I owned but only aspired to use: the glue gun I never mastered, mysteriously specific silver serving pieces untouched since our wedding, my beige pumps with superhigh heels. The flip side of aspirational clutter is outgrown clutter. I discovered a big pile of plastic photo boxes piled in a drawer, I used them for years, but even though I like proper picture frames now, I'd held on to the plastic versions.

The kind of clutter that I found most disagreeable was buyer's remorse clutter, when, rather than admit that I'd made a bad purchase, I hung on to things until somehow I felt they'd been "used up" by sitting in a closet or on a shelf - the canvas bag that I'd used only once since I bought it two years ago, those impractical white pants.

Having sized up the situation, I went straight to the festering heart of my household clutter: my own closet. I've never been very good at folding, so messy, lopsided towers of shirts and sweaters jammed the shelves. Too many items were hung on the clothes rod, so I had to muscle my way into a mass of wool and cotton to pull anything out. Bits of socks and T-shirts hung over the edges of drawers that I'd forced shut. I'd start my clutter-clearing here.

So I could focus properly, I stayed home while Jamie took the girls to visit his parents for the day. The minute the elevator door closed behind them, I began.

I'd read suggestions that I should invest in an extra closet rod or in storage boxes that fit under the bed or in hangers that would hold four pairs of paints on one rod. For me, however, there was only one essential tool of clutter clearing: trash bags. I set aside one bag for throwaways and one for giveaways and dived in.

First, I got rid of items that no one should be wearing anymore. Good-bye, baggy yoga pants. Next I pulled out the items that, realistically, I knew I wouldn't wear. Good-bye gray sweater that barely covered my navel. Then the culling got harder. I liked those brown pants, but I couldn't figure out what shoes to wear with them. I liked that dress, but I never had the right place to wear it. I forced myself to take the time to make each item work, and if I couldn't, out it went. I started to notice my dodges. When I told myself, "I would wear this," I meant that I didn't, in fact, wear it. "I have worn this" meant that I'd worn it twice in five years. "I could wear this" meant that I'd never worn it and never would.

Once I'd finished the closet, I went back through it once again. When I finished, I had four bags full of clothes, and I could see huge patches of the back of my closet. I no longer felt drained; instead, I felt exhilarated. No more being confronted with my mistakes! No more searching in frustration for a particular white button-down shirt!

Having cleared some space, I craved more. I tried any trick I could. Why had I been holding on to thirty extra hangers? I got rid of all but a few extra hangers, which opened up a considerable amount of space. I got rid of some shopping bags I'd kept tucked away for years, for no good reasons. I'd planned only on sorting through hanging items, but, energized and inspired, I attacked my sock and T-shirt drawers. Instead of pawing around for items to eliminate, I emptied each drawer completely, and I put back only the items that I actually wore.

I gloated as I surveyed my now-roomy closet. So much space. No more guilt. The next day I craved another hit. "We're going to do something really fun tonight!" I said to Jamie in a bright voice as he was checking sports news on TV.

"What?" he said, immediately suspicious. He kept the remote control prominently in his hand.

"We're going to clear out your closet and drawers!"

"Oh. Well, okay," he said agreeably. I shouldn't have been surprised by his reaction: Jamie loves order. He turned off the TV.

"But we're not going to get rid of much," he warned me. "I wear most of this stuff pretty regularly."

"Okay, sure," I said sweetly. We'll see about that, I thought.

Going through his closet turned out to be fun. Jamie sat on the bed while I pulled hangers out of his closet, two at a time, and he, much less tortured than I, gave a simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down - except once, when he insisted, "I've never seen that pair of pants before in my life." He got rid of a giant bag of clothes.

Over the next few weeks, as I adjusted to my half-empty closet, I noticed a paradox: although I had far fewer clothes in front of me, I felt as though I had more to wear - because everything in my closet was something that I realistically would wear.

Also, having few clothing choices made me happier. Although people believe they like to have lots of choice, having too many choices can be discouraging. Instead of making people feel more satisfied, a wide range of options can paralyze them. Studies show that when faced with two dozen varieties of jam in a grocery store, for example, or lots of investment options for their pension plan, people often choose arbitrarily or walk away without making any choice at all, rather than labour to make a reasoned choice. I certainly felt happier choosing between two pairs of black pants that I liked rather than among five pairs of black pants, the majority of which were either uncomfortable or unfashionable - and which made me feel guilty for never wearing them, to boot.

Who knew that doing something so mundane could give me such a kick? By this point, I was jonesing for more of the clutter-clearing buzz, so while a pregnant friend opened her presents at a baby shower, I quizzed my fellow guests for new strategies.

"Focus on the dump zones," advised one friend. "You know, the dining room table, the kitchen counter, the place where everyone dumps their stuff."

"Right," I said. "Our biggest dump zone is a chair in our bedroom. We never sit in it, we just pile clothes and magazines on it."

"Junk attracts more junk. If you clear it off, it's likely to stay clear. And here's another thing," she continued. "When you buy any kind of device, put the cords, the manual, all that stuff in a labelled Ziploc bag. You avoid having a big tangle of mystery cords, plus, when you get rid of the device, you can get rid of the ancillary parts too."

"Try a 'virtual move'," another friend added. "I just did it myself. Walk around your apartment and ask yourself - if I were moving, would I pack this or get rid of it?"

"I never keep anything for sentimental reasons alone," someone else claimed. "Only if I'm using it."

These suggestions were helpful, but that last rule was too draconian for me. I'd never get rid of the "Justice Never Rests" T-shirt from the aerobics class I took with Justic Sandra Day O'Connor when I clerked for her, even though it never did fit, or the doll-sized outfit that our preemie Eliza wore when she came home from the hospital. I have a friend who keeps twelve tennis racquets, left over from her days playing college tennis.)

When one of my college roommates visited New York, we waxed lyrical over coffee about the glories of clutter clearning.

"What in life," I demanded, "gives immediate gratification equal to cleaning out a medicine cabinet? Nothing!"

"No, nothing," she agreed with equal fervour. But she took it even further. "You know, I keep an empty shelf."

"What do you mean?"

"I keep one shelf, somewhere in my house, completely empty. I'll pack every other shelf to the top, but I keep one shelf bare."

I was struck by the poetry of this resolution. An empty shelf? And she had three children. An empty shelf meant possibility; space to expand; a luxurious waste of something useful for the sheer elegance of it. I had to have one. I went home, went straight to my hall closet, and emptied a shelf. It wasn't a big shelf, but it was empty. Thrilling.

I hunted through the apartment, and no object, no matter how small, escaped my scrutiny. I'd long been annoyed by the maddening accumulation of gimcracks that children attract. Gliterry superballs, miniature flashlights, small plastic zoo animals...this stuff was everywhere. It was fun to have and the girls wanted to keep it, but it was hard to put it away, because where did it go?

My Eight Commandment is: "Identify the Problem." I'd realized that often I put up with a problem for years because I never examined the nature of the problem and how it might be solved. It turns out that stating a problem clearly often suggests its solutions. For instance, I hated hanging up my own coat, so I usually left it slung on the back of a chair.

Identify the problem: "Why don't I ever hang up up my coat?"

Answer: "I don't like fussing with hangers."

Solution: "So use the hook on the inside of the door."

When I asked myself: "What's the problem with all these little toys?"

I answered: "Eliza and Eleanor want to keep this stuff, but we don't have a place to put it away." Bingo. I immediately saw the solution to my problem. The next day, I stopped by the Container Store and bought five large glass canisters. I combed through the apartment to collect toy flotsam and stuffed it in. Clutter cured! I filled all five jars. What I hadn't anticipated was that the jars looked great on the shelf - colourful, festive and inviting. My solution was ornamental as well as practical.

A pleasant, unintended consequence of my clutter clearing is that it solved the "four-thermometer syndrome": I could never find our thermometer so I kept buying new ones, and when my clutter clearing flushed them all out, we had four thermometers. (Which I never used, by the way; I felt the back of the girls' necks to see if they had a fever). It's a Secret of Adulthood: if you can't find something, clean up. I discovered that although it seemed easier to put things away in general areas - the coat closet, any kitchen drawer - it was more satisfying when each item went in a highly specific location. One of life's small pleasures is to return something to its proper place; putting the shoe polish on the second shelf in the linen closet gave me the archer's satisfaction of hitting a mark.

I also hit on a few daily rules to help keep the apartment from constantly falling into disorder. First, following my Fourth Commandment, "Do it now," I started to apply the "one-minute rule"; I didn't postpone any task that could be done in less than one minute. I put away my umbrella; I filed a document. I put the newspapers in the recycling bin; I closed the cabinet door. These steps took just a few moments, but the cumulative impact was impressive.

Along with the "one-minute rule," I observed the "evening tidy-up" by taking ten minutes before bed to do simple tidying. Tidying up at night made our mornings more serene and pleasant, and, in an added benefit, helped prepare me for sleep. Putting things in order is very calming, and doing something physical makes me aware of being tired. If I've been reading under the covers for an hour before turning out the light, I don't get the same feeling of luxurious comfort when I stretch out in bed.

As the clutter behind closed doors and cabinets began to diminish, I attacked visual clutter. For instance, we subscribe to a huge number of magazines, and we couldn't keep them neat. I cleared out a drawer, and now we keep magazines stacked out of sight, ready to grab before we head to the gym. I'd been keeping invitations, school notices, and varaious miscellanea posted on a bulletin board, but I pulled it all down and moved it into a file labelled, "Upcoming events and invitations." I was no more or less organized than before, but our visual chaos dropped.

I'd dreaded doing the clutter clearing, because it seemed like such an enormous job, and it was an enormous job, but every time I looked around and saw the extra space and order, I registered a little jolt of energy. I was thrilled with the improved conditions in our apartment, and I kept waiting for Jamie to say, "Boy, everything looks terrific! You've done so much work, it's so much nicer!" But he never did. I love my gold stars, so that was disappointing, but on the other hand, he didn't complain about lugging five hundred pounds of stuff to the thrift store. And even if he didn't appreciate my efforts as much as I'd expected, it didn't really matter; I felt uplifted and restored by my clutter clearing.