“How we hold the simplest of our tasks
speaks loudly about how we hold life itself.
– Gunilla Norris, Being Home
“I once saw a staggering statistic in Newsweek: ‘It takes the average American fifty-five minutes every day-roughly twelve weeks a year-looking for things they know they own but can’t find’ (Newsweek, June 7, 2004). Though I’ve thought that this outdated factoid (which always seemed a bit exaggerated) could not possibly relate to me, I had to smile when I found myself tearing my entire office apart looking for this very quotation to make my point! I can’t say that it took me fifty-five minutes to locate it, but, if I added the time it took me to look for the sales receipt I needed to return a set of curtain rods, plus find the phone number for a subscription I wanted to cancel, I suppose you could say I’m getting up there.
“These are the obvious reasons for giving every thing a home, of course. Having a place for everything helps us keep things in order and find them again. It helps us get to the car in the morning without tripping over shoes, backpacks, or purses.
“Giving things a home helps us know when we have too much stuff. Discovering that there is zero space in the bookcase to jam another paperback, or zero coat hangers to hang the new outfit we just bought on sale, for example, gives us instant feedback that something has to give or something has to go. Housing things properly holds us accountable and keeps us honest.
“But, as we have seen alraedy, there is more going on here than the obvious. If we consider the concept of “participatory relationship” that we explored in Chapter 2 and that Gunilla Norris alludes to in her book Being Home, there is something vital – something organic and alive – that connects us to our homes and our things. Giving an object that we love a dedicated space recognizes its purpose and honors its value to us. Papers, bottles, sticky candy wrappers strewn in the back seat of the care, for example, or homeless CDs scattered helter-skelter, or leftovers molding on the kitchen counter, represent way more than ‘poor slob’ or ‘hopeless’ human behaviors. To me they reflect a level of unconsciousness: a deep disconnect from our environment and our world at large. If you wonder how this can be so, just stop for a moment and use the practice tool you learned in Chapter 4 and feel what it feels like – physically and emotionally – to neglect or disrespect your things.
“So here’s my tough-love position on this issue: No matter how precious, or valuable, or critical your things may be to your personal survival, self-concept, health, or well being, unless you have a permanent and dedicated place to put them, they are … clutter! This means, simply: no home, no have.”
–Excerpted from Your Spacious Self: Clear Your Clutter and Discover Who You Are, Chapter 6 “Put Away Every Day,” pp. 75-76.
Stephanie Bennett Vogt © All Rights Reserved
Photo Credit: Google Images/Anne Taintor
I was once addicted to mail order catalogs. I decided that I would limit the number that I would hold on to and put them in a nice basket in my bedroom. If one went in, one had to go out. Then I realized that I had totally forgotten about the things I thought I might order (but didn’t need). This system helped me accumulate less and save money!
Love your solution – of moving the stuff both out of the home and out of the mind 😉