A few weeks ago, I up-ended everything in my home office.
I had previously gotten the office under some semblance of control: the bookshelves were thinned, the floor was mostly cleared, I could position my chair for video appointments pretty much anywhere.
And then, I decided I had had enough of my super-stuffed closet. I said I wanted space to put away my ironing board when I wasn’t using it. Suddenly I was emptying out my super-stuffed closet and had to deal with whatever crap was in there. In the process, I turned my nearly tidy office into an unholy mess, which prompted some reflection.
Here are a few of the lessons I am taking away from this experience.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and apparently so do I.
I’m not talking about the nearly empty floor of my office–though emptying my closet certainly fixed that “problem.”
I’m talking about a lack of direction. I needed a project, something to do that couldn’t be ignored and which would make me feel I had accomplished something meaningful when I was done.
Earlier this year I emptied out my extra bookshelf and removed it from the room. Then I cleaned up the mess that got left behind. After that I cleared out a few bags of journals and magazines, and organized paperwork. That felt good, but these projects were over.
In the meantime, I finished reading Little Women and Mr. PiN and I were nearing the end of the TV series that we had been watching for 2 months (Rome, if you want to know). I was feeling a little lost, trying to decide what I might work on next, both in terms of reading an our evening’s entertainment.
Tearing everything out of the closet gave me something to do for an afternoon. Clearing out the resultant mess has kept me busy with sorting/donating/reorganizing for several weeks. I had a nice time giving some items to people who wanted them, through my local Buy Nothing group.
It wasn’t always thrilling fun, but it gave me a purpose for my time. Possibly not the most highbrow purpose, but purpose nonetheless.
I now have more space in my closet and can get my hands on the air mattress, the ironing board, or my good clothes, with little trouble.
The office is messier, but I think with some regular attention, it can be cleaned up nicely relatively soon.
I’m glad to have the closet cleared, but I think it might be safer keeping a list of smaller projects for the next time I feel a bit adrift.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics Still Holds True.
The natural trend of the Universe is that entropy always increases, and this project has certainly borne this out.
Put another way, it took me 2 to 3 hours to empty out my super-stuffed closet.
It’s taken me more than 3 weeks to put away the clothes that I am keeping, corral discards and donations in a box closer to the front door, and store papers related to old business in the attic, instead of letting them squat behind my wedding dress (which is back in the closet).
There are yet still a fair number of items still on the office floor that I will have to manage in the coming weeks.
Even if you think that you will have everything under control soon, don’t be fooled. Just remember, everything tends towards chaos.
Not all advice on the internet works for YOU.
I love reading about minimalism. The idea of having only beautiful or necessary things in your home (or, better yet, having all your necessary items be beautiful) is a lovely goal to aspire to. Much better than feeling smothered in things I keep “just in case.”
By that logic, therefore, I should only keep clothes that I am wearing right now. Maybe a warm weather and cold weather wardrobe.
However. I’m short and shall we say…weight challenged.
Anyway, at my height, gaining or losing 7 pounds means I have changed an entire size. Even 4 lbs makes a big difference in whether or not I am comfortable wearing an outfit.
In the past several years, I have cycled through 3 sizes of clothes. I am not ready to part with an entire wardrobe of sizes, knowing that I may need to buy them all over again in a few months. Especially since, at my height, I would have to spend time (and money) buying clothes, and then more time (and money) having them shortened.
Obviously, it would be better if I could get to my preferred size and stay there. Until then, I am keeping my clothes in multiple sizes.
Differentiating between keeping useful items and the sunk cost fallacy can be hard.
We have an inflatable mattress in my closet, and it gets pulled out once or twice a year when my brother comes with his family. Though for most of the year it is just taking up space, I am very glad to have the extra “mattress” to make sure we can offer a place for the children to sleep. We don’t know anyone with an extra air mattress that we could borrow instead (though I’d be fine acting as the friend who can loan it to someone else. It would make me feel we were getting more use out of the item.) I feel this is a useful item.
On the other hand, I also have the down comforter for what is now the guest bed. It was what I slept under for many years before I got married, and the comforter was quite a splurge (i.e. very expensive) when I was living on a graduate student stipend. I used it for many years, enjoyed it, and now haven’t used it for at least 7 years. However, I can’t bring myself to part from it now (it was expensive! it’s high quality!) even though it never gets used on the guest bed and is mostly just taking up space. I suspect this is an example of the sunk cost fallacy. Though I’m not willing to take the next step and get rid of that down duvet.
Hard Work is (not) its own (only) reward
I expected this to be a difficult project: sorting tons of stuff and having to decide what to keep and what to discard. Figuring out how to dispose of the items I was letting go in a way that felt OK (throwing perfectly usable items in the trash makes me feel awful).
I was not entirely mistaken, there was plenty of that sort of difficulty. I did, however, run across a few amusing or useful items:
My portfolio from my residency interviews. Complete with business cards. (The portfolio is being donated, the business cards are not going with it.)
Copies of an old newsletter I used to edit. (I am keeping these.)
Gifts purchased on the last vacation I took before switching jobs. This means I just knocked off some of my holiday shopping this year.
A five dollar bill in a purse I had decided to give away.
Though my only goal was to make the closet more functional, by sorting through all the contents, I also got to take a stroll down memory lane, and make a little money.
Have you joined the deluge of pandemic declutterers? Any amusing anecdotes?