Peace [and Quiet] on Earth

"Communion" © 1992 Cynthia Friedlob [hand-colored photograph]

I've been thinking a lot about how my need for uncluttered, open space includes the need for quiet space. Emptiness allows room for reflection, but the reflection won't come easily unless there's also quiet. Kaid Benfield wrote an article for The Atlantic in which this idea is pondered on a larger scale, that of a city:

"I have a theory that, the busier and livelier a city is, the more it needs places of retreat, places where one can get away and be quiet and still."

Parks, gardens, libraries, museums, and places of worship can offer quiet relief from the pressures and fast pace of city life, but what do you do when you're home? Where do you go for relief from your busy and lively day? If you're surrounded by clutter, there's nowhere to go, and that's very unfortunate for both your mental and physical well-being.

During the holiday season, it's common to hear expressions of hope for peace on Earth. For those of us who are fortunate enough to have our basic needs well met, in fact, to have much more than we need, it might be time to acknowledge that uncluttering is not just an aesthetic issue, or even a basic stress-reducer; it's also an important part of finding a deeper, personal peace. And there's no chance for peace on Earth until we can find peace within ourselves.

Best wishes to you for peace, now and in the coming New Year.

Too Busy to Unclutter?

© awitikoski at stock.xchng 

I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately by all of the stuff I need to do and I want to change that. I've fallen behind on some things that are current, but what nags at me is the stuff that's been unresolved for ages -- the "postponed decisions" that organizer Peter Walsh says are at the root of clutter: little piles of notes with information on them that I perceive is worth keeping; artwork that needs to be stored rather than stacked; items that need to be donated, not left in a holding area. In an effort to get a grip on my situation and stop beating myself up over it, I reread two articles that I've saved because I think they're so insightful. (And, yes, I have some digital clutter that needs to go, too!)

John Tierney offers this observation in "Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue?":

"Decision fatigue helps explain why ordinarily sensible people get angry at colleagues and families, splurge on clothes, buy junk food at the supermarket and can’t resist the dealer’s offer to rustproof their new car. No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price. . . . Once you’re mentally depleted, you become reluctant to make trade-offs, which involve a particularly advanced and taxing form of decision making. In the rest of the animal kingdom, there aren’t a lot of protracted negotiations between predators and prey. To compromise is a complex human ability and therefore one of the first to decline when willpower is depleted. You become what researchers call a cognitive miser, hoarding your energy."

While the article focuses on how how decision fatigue depletes your energy to make choices while shopping or trying to stay on a diet, I'm convinced that it also contributes to an inability to tackle clutter effectively. When you postpone decisions about your clutter, it's not simply because the decisions are difficult to make; there are also probably too many of them for you to handle comfortably and they probably fall into too many different categories -- papers, clothes, sentimental items, etc.-- each with their own unique excuses that trap you and prevent you from moving forward. Thus, you feel decision fatigue, and it becomes easier not to decide, and go do something else. Like write a blog post.

As the article points out, there is a biological price extracted -- it's not just "all in your head." So perhaps the best way to handle dealing with those postponed decisions (assuming you're not hiring a personal organizer to blast through the process with you) is to tackle them in very small quantities. Forgive yourself for having allowed the clutter to accumulate and tackle only a decision or two a day. Work on uncluttering when you're rested and well-fed, so you'll be less likely to succumb to feelings of pressure or despair that you'll ever complete the job. If you have an average clutter problem, not a clutter crisis, eventually you'll gain the upper hand.

There's another related issue that many people face and Tim Kreider calls it "The Busy Trap." From his article:

"If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: 'Busy!' 'So busy.' 'Crazy busy.' It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: 'That’s a good problem to have,' or 'Better than the opposite.' . . . The present hysteria is not a necessary or inevitable condition of life; it’s something we’ve chosen, if only by our acquiescence to it."

I've known plenty of "crazy busy" people and many of them don't seem to get much joy out of their busyness. Some don't seem to get much done, either, other than treading water. The things they say they want to do are always put on the back burner to enjoy sometime later, but also on the back burner are their problems, including dealing with their clutter. Being productive is the focus of their lives and uncluttering, while they might acknowledge as a useful task, is low on their list of priorities. The idea of doing nothing is incomprehensible to them.  Kreider says all this busyness is to avoid an existential problem: the feeling of the meaninglessness of everything we do. Maybe, but maybe it's not quite that bleak. Maybe it's just another way to avoid making decisions about things that make us uncomfortable.

I fall into the "being productive" trap sometimes and, when paired with decision fatigue, that can result in doing things that are faux productive. For me, that usually means reading and looking at interesting things online. It's engrossing and can feel like I'm doing something important when I'm learning something new, but I'm really just entertaining and distracting myself. I don't truly need to know all those obscure facts about esoteric subjects. (I'm delighted that you're reading this blog post, but if you have a clutter problem, please go do something about it as soon as you're done!)

It seems that if we want to take control of our excessive busyness, we need to make choices that allow us some genuine down time. Not paralyzed by decision fatigue time, not distraction time, but quiet time that allows us to regenerate our enthusiasm for life. As Kreider points out:

"Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done."

Tim Kreider thinks that life is too short to be busy. I'd add that life is too short to live it surrounded by clutter, whether it's in your living space or stowed away in closets, drawers, and storage units where it remains as clutter in your head. So, fortified with a decent night's sleep and a good meal, I'm off to make a decision or two about my supposedly important scraps of papers. Then, I'll allow myself a little quiet idleness. It should be a genuinely productive evening.

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"All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone."

~ Blaise Pascal

Cluttered Life in the 21st Century

Regular readers know that both The Thoughtful Consumer blog and my book, Sorting It Out, were inspired by my own uncluttering efforts several years ago. Like many people, I had been busy working and living and accumulating stuff until one day I had to acknowledge that my formerly simple, uncluttered home had become crowded and uncomfortable.

I'm a firm believer in a philosphy held by Blaise Pascal: "All of man's problems stem from his inability to sit quietly alone in an empty room." I wanted that quiet, empty space again -- or at least a room that was uncluttered enough to feel relaxing. That meant facing some "postponed decisions," as professional organizer Peter Walsh calls clutter.

The process of achieving a reasonably uncluttered state was challenging, and those challenges continue. I still hold on to some things that I honestly can't justify keeping. I still face temptation to buy things that I don't need. I still haven't conquered all of my organizing dilemmas. And, judging from the popularity of uncluttering books and workshops, and the burgeoning field of professional organizing, a lot of people have the same issues.

So, let's take a look at three recent, useful links to posts on that basic topic of clutter:

From the L.A. Times: "Clutter and Other Family Problems of the 21st Century"

"An interdisciplinary group of researchers — archaeologists, anthropologists, psychologists and other social scientists — found that mothers who described their houses as messy or cluttered experienced higher rates of a depressed mood in the evening. This correlation was one of many findings on human relationships and behavior with material possessions in the book Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century, which was published in early July...Among the many findings, researchers discovered that families are generally over-scheduled, with less time being spent outdoors or eating dinner together. The families paid a lot of money renovating and remodeling a house, only to spend much of their time in front of a TV...About 75% of the garages in the study held so much overflow from the main house that a car no longer fit."

From Yahoo Homes: "Why Clutter Matters and Decluttering is Difficult"

"Clutter matters, [pro organizer Jennifer] Hunter says. It matters because it takes up space — not just in your surroundings, but in your head. Of the two, the psychological effect of clutter is the most important. 'When we clear the clutter out of a space, people breathe a sigh of relief.' The mood changes instantly. People feel lighter, more serene, more focused."

From Parade Magazine: "Is Your Stuff Weighing You Down?" Adapted from Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen. Published by Random House, a division of Random House Inc. © 2012 by Anna Quindlen.

"At some point desire and need became untethered in our lives, and shopping became a competitive sport...I fooled myself into thinking that House Beautiful should be subtitled Life Wonderful...Now that I’m nearing 60, I understand the truth about possessions, that they mean or prove or solve nothing. Stuff is not salvation."

In the uncluttering workshops that I teach occasionally, I always ask my students to identify what they would save if they had to leave the house immediately because of a disaster (in earthquake country, that's a particularly salient concern). They usually answer in the same general way that Anna Quindlen did in her article in Parade: grab some photos and the dogs and go. Protecting your family and the family pets is primary on everyone's mind in a crisis, so I have no doubt that even the photos would be abandoned, if necessary.

And yet we cling to so much more -- not just the necessities, not just a few important sentimental things, not just comfortable little luxuries we enjoy, but stuff that's useless, worn out, and weighing us down. "Possessions mean or prove or solve nothing." Will we ever understand that? When we do, and when we accept it wholeheartedly, we'll finally be able to stop postponing our decisions and act.
  

Clutter and Collections

Most people define clutter as too much stuff, which is certainly accurate, as long as you can define what's "too much." Quantity is flexible; function is the more important issue. Is it physically in your way? Is it a constant annoyance in the back of your mind? I'd say that you have too much when your stuff gets in the way of living your life the way you want to live it.

Some people can amass a ton of stuff and be quite content: collectors. They enjoy what they own, they care for it, display it (as much of it as they can), and are eager to share it and their experiences collecting it with others. Here are two completely different examples of collectors: one is quite traditional, while the other collected cast-offs to create art.

Archaeologist Andrea Ludden’s collection of over 40,000 pairs of salt and pepper shakers is housed in two museums, one of them created by her and her family. Click here to read more and be sure to view the excellent slide show of examples from the collection.

High school teacher, writer and artist Victor Moore constructed his Junk Castle from salvaged items such as sheet metal, tin, washing machine parts, dryer doors, miscellaneous housings, bedsteads, and the door from a '52 Oldsmobile. Another interesting slide show is at this link.

Is your stuff as well cared for, as beautiful, or as useful as the items in these collections -- or is it just clutter?

Ursus Wehrli Tidies Up

For the first time, both of my blogs, "The Thoughtful Consumer" and "Art by Cynthia," are showcasing the same thing -- or more precisely, the same person: Ursus Wehrli. Never before has art overlapped so perfectly with uncluttering and organizing!

From a post on PSFK:

"Swiss artist and comedian, Ursus Wehrli, known for his Tidying Up Art books (where he tidies up famous artwork, such as Van Gogh’s Room or Botticelli’s Beach by carefully rearranging them) returns with a new project. In his forthcoming book, The Art of Clean Up he brings his passion for sorting things to everyday life and objects."

See his TED Talk for more about tidying up art.

I find his work to be creative and hilarious. But, in real life, at what point does "tidying up" become obsessive? From the point of view of the readers of this blog, I suspect that's not much of an issue. And yet, in order to avoid tackling the large clutter issues in your life, do you ever obsess over a small area that you can control by making certain it's orderly? Does this somehow prove to you that you're really not living a cluttered life -- you just don't have enough time to be neat and tidy everywhere; just look here (wherever it might be) where you've clearly demonstrated that you can succeed at uncluttering! I know a woman who was overwhelmed by the clutter throughout her home but, whenever she tried to tackle it, she'd end up cleaning only the kitchen. The rest of the house was untouched, but that clean kitchen reassured her that she hadn't lost control completely.

I don't feel compelled to tidy up everything and I'm very fond of some messy art, but Ursus Wehrli provides amusing proof that order can be made out of all manner of "chaos." Just watch the video to see how he cleverly resolves the "mess" in a Jackson Pollack painting. As I said: hilarious!

Clutter and Stereotypes

It's probably no surprise to most of us that a cluttered space can make a person feel uncomfortable. Our brains are hard-wired to create order out of whatever we encounter. That's why we often can see faces and figures when we look at clouds. It's why we try to create understandable patterns when we're really dealing with random information. We want to interpret the abstract and the unpredictable in ways that are familiar, comfortable, something that makes sense to us. So a disordered environment just doesn't sit well with the way our brains work. Obviously some of us are able to function in more of a mess than others, but it's an unusual person who doesn't find order to be more calming than disorder.

However, a fascinating recent study has found that disorder also can have another effect on our brains. According to an article by Amina Khan in today's LA Times:

"People in messy environments tend to compensate by categorizing people in their minds according to well-known stereotypes, researchers from Tilburg University in the Netherlands say."

The idea is that we fall back on the comfort of "orderly" stereotypes when we're made uncomfortable by a chaotic environment. The study used a train station during a time when cleaners were on strike and compared responses to questions and situations to the responses received when the station was neat and clean. They also experimented by questioning subjects in front of a house in an affluent neighborhood when a few items made the exterior look uncared for and again when the house looked as tidy as would be expected. In both cases, responses revealed significant differences in the amount of stereotyping done by the subjects. In addition:

"Lab experiments further confirmed that when faced with images of chaos — be it a messy room or a random scattering of triangles and circles — volunteers rated themselves higher on a scale measuring their personal need for structure. When they were allowed to express stereotypical feelings immediately after seeing those disordered pictures, however, their 'personal need for structure' scores were lower. Stereotyping satisfied that need, said [social psychologist Diederik Stapel, the study's lead author]."

The conclusions: the need for order matters even more than we knew it did and it can have unexpected effects on our thoughts, perhaps even our behavior. Does this mean that if we could unclutter everyone on Earth, we might at last find world peace? Well, that may be stretching it a bit, but it couldn't hurt!

© 2011 Cynthia Friedlob

Image: Hazel Bregazzi at stock.xchng

Saying Goodbye to Sentimental Clutter

Even in our most zealous moments of uncluttering our lives, almost all of us are stopped cold when we're confronted with something that has sentimental value. That's understandable, but often what we really need to confront is the fact that our definition of what has sentimental value is too broad. Almost every object in our homes will conjure some sort of memory, but even if that memory is connected with a special person or is a part of an overall happy time in life, that doesn't mean that the object is worthy of keeping.

I've had the good fortune to inherit some truly lovely sentimental stuff, but eventually I had to acknowledge that many of the most meaningful items were no longer appropriate to have in my daily life. Redefining them was the only way that I could let them go and, logically, I knew that I needed to do that. (Specific stories are in my book.) When I did let them go -- thoughtfully and, a few times, tearfully -- I was both liberated and challenged in ways I hadn't expected. Yes, there was room for things that were more functional, but there was also a void. Who was I if I wasn't the caretaker of the antique family furniture and dishes? Who was I if I was no longer the girl who grew up playing the piano and continued to do so for all of her life? Did that mean I was disconnected from my heritage in some way? Was I supposed to abandon my love of music?

Of course not. But it's surprising how much our individual identities are connected with our possessions and how when we change, as we inevitably do, those objects that surround us can become anchors to a past that we need to carry more lightly or sometimes shed altogether. I had to realize that my connection to my family history was just as intact as it had ever been, even though I had fewer tangible mementos. My relationship with music was still solid, too, even though it was expressed in a different way. For some of us, or for some aspects of each of our lives, simply letting go of the past completely by letting go of the things we have that are associated with it allows us to be more comfortable with who we are now. However, anyone who's ever parted with something that signifies an important relationship with a person or a time of life that has ended knows that there's a feeling of finality and acceptance that allows us to move forward, yet we often find intermingled with that feeling a bit of insecurity about who we are now that we're no longer a part of that relationship. I think that's okay. In fact, I think that mixed feelings are what we really need to get comfortable with in order to navigate life with less stress and anxiety.

Too much sentiment can be a dangerous condition. There's a difference between feeling rooted or connected and feeling weighted down or burdened by obligation. There's also a difference between embracing our history and how it shaped who we are now versus clinging to our past and, perhaps, our youth, because we're afraid of change. Maybe we need to work on understanding and accepting ourselves as much as we need to work on understanding and accepting that the things we own are not truly what define us.

Of course, life is unpredictable, so even if we've resolved these issues, sometimes forces outside of our control will continue to make choices for us. For a dramatic example of imposed choices, read Anatomy of a Tornado, Tornado Chronicles and Nature is a Moody Muse, blog posts by Debbie Kaspari, an Oklahoma fine artist who survived the devastating effects of extreme spring weather that she refers to as The Event. She explains how her relationship with "stuff" and "STUFF" was clarified in a way no one wants to experience. Fortunately, not all was lost for her.

How sentimental are you? Are you clear about what's just "stuff" in your life and what is "STUFF" that has real meaning? Would it take a tornado to make you figure it out?

© 2010 Cynthia Friedlob
Image credit: Joel Messner at stock.xchng

New Day Resolutions

Bill Vaughn, the late Kansas City Star columnist and author, once observed about New Year's Eve that "an optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year; a pessimist stays up to make sure the old one leaves." I suspect that most of us combine both of those outlooks, eager to put any unpleasant memories behind us and hopeful that the coming year will provide many happy ones.

I also have mixed feelings about the annual ritual of making resolutions. Sometimes those vows to ourselves can be motivating, but sometimes they set us up for feelings of failure. Part of the problem is the intense focus on making dramatic changes starting on one particular day, January 1st, as if no other day were suitable for such tasks and as if small changes were not important. Fall off the resolution wagon, as so many of us do, and the whole year is shot. Of course, that's not true, but we often feel that way.

So, this year I've decided to abandon New Year's resolutions in favor of the approach that British sculptor Henry Moore advocated: "I think in terms of the day's resolutions, not the year's." I much prefer this option to reinvent myself on a smaller scale every day rather than in some major form once a year. Thinking in terms of daily reinventions will allow me to avoid the usual large, annual goal-oriented resolutions -- even such worthy ones as last year's plan to lose mffwhty pounds (unsuccessful) or the 365 Item Toss Unclutterer Challenge (successful!).

But resolutions, no matter what their scale or how often they're promised, require some sort of structure, so I've come up with one. Rather than making a list of specific things to do (or avoid doing), I'm going to use a few questions to help me make daily choices. I offer them for you to consider using, too:

1. Is what I'm doing either necessary or enjoyable?

2. Could I approach it in a way that would render it either unnecessary or more enjoyable?

3. Is engaging in this activity the best expression of my authentic self?

The last question is especially significant. Are you being the best version of who you truly are, not who you're "supposed" to be, not who other people perceive you to be, not who you used to be some time in the past? Of course, this requires defining who you are now. That can be a fairly daunting, but worthwhile, task that will take some time (probably more than you might think).

And how does all this apply to "thoughtful consumers?" First of all, in what ways does that phrase describe you? Does it mean avoiding certain products or manufacturers because they don't appeal to your own authentic sense of what's "right?" Does it mean using public transportation or a bicycle? Does it mean living in a commune? (Shades of the sixties!) Or does it mean simply avoiding buying things that you and your family don't really need so that you don't live surrounded by clutter? However you define it, that's a reflection of your authentic self and your daily choices can be guided by that knowledge.

Guided, not propelled down some inflexible path to some unimpeachable truth. Many consumer choices are complex and confusing; some options are unaffordable or impractical. Also, situations and levels of awareness change over time and the choices you make today may not be the choices you make tomorrow. The key word in the label, "thoughtful consumer," is "thoughtful."

There's one other thing I'm going to remind myself about every day (if only I remember!) that I hope you'll remember, too: it's not necessary to be perfect; it's only necessary to do the best you can do.

If you're reading this on December 31st, you don't have to wait until tomorrow to start becoming the best version of your authentic self. Happy New Year, but happy new day, too.

(c) 2009 Cynthia Friedlob

Image Credit : (c) 2009 Billy Alexander stock.xchng

The Great California Garage Sale

It's a pretty sorry situation when a state has to resort to a garage sale to help balance a budget that suffers from a 26 billion dollar deficit. But that's what California did this weekend at the Great California Garage Sale. The government gathered up all of its clutter, plunked it down in a huge warehouse in Sacramento and opened the doors to the gleeful public. There were even items listed for sale on eBay.

It turned out to be a good idea.

Literally thousands of typical garage sale bargains like office furniture, computers, electronics, jewelry and an antique piano, plus some less common finds like surplus prison uniforms and dental chairs, brought about 1.6 million dollars to the state's coffers. Almost 600 state-owned vehicles were auctioned on-line; some had visors that had been autographed by our famous governator in order to boost their value.

I'm not a big fan of garage sales because the time and energy involved don't often pay off in a substantial way, but that's just my personal preference. If you're excited about having a garage sale to unclutter your home and raise some cash, it could be a perfectly fine choice for you.

However you choose to let go of things you don't need or want, the important thing is to let go. (If you or someone you know has a serious problem doing that and the resulting clutter is out of control, there is help at the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation website.)

The classic example of the inability to let go is the oft-cited story of the Collyer brothers whose hoarding ultimately led to their deaths in the late 1940s. A new novel about the brothers and their plight has just been published. Written by E.L. Doctorow, author of numerous fine books including World's Fair and Ragtime, Homer & Langley (which I have not yet read) sounds like a generous, humanizing story of the brothers' lives. On Amazon.com, Doctorow said:

"I was a teenager when the Collyer brothers were found dead in their Fifth Avenue brownstone. Instantly, they were folklore. . . I didn’t know at the time that I would someday write about them, but even then I felt there was some secret to the Collyers--there was something about them still to be discovered under the piles of things in their house--the bales of newspapers and the accumulated detritus of their lives. Was it only that they were junk-collecting eccentrics? You see that every day in the streets of New York. They had opted out--that was the primary fact. Coming from a well-to-do family, with every advantage, they had locked the door and closed the shutters and absented themselves from the life around them. . . I felt as if writing [the book] was an act of breaking and entering just to see what may have been going on in that house, which really meant getting inside two very interesting minds."

And yet, however interesting their minds may have been, their hermit-like existence in a home literally packed to the rafters is incomprehensible to most of us. Excerpts from a 2005 column by William Bryk in the New York Sun give more details about how they lived:

"At 8:53 a.m. on March 21, 1947, police headquarters received a pseudonymous call reporting a dead man in the [Collyer brothers'] mansion. After failing to force the front doors, the police unhinged them to find a solid wall of boxes. The basement stairs to the first floor were similarly blocked. After forcing a first-floor window, they saw rooms and stairwells jammed with ceiling-high, rat-infested stacks of boxes, paper, and furniture. . . By the end of the second day [of clearing the house], according to the Times, the first floor hallway alone had yielded 19 tons of debris. . .

"Amidst hundreds of tons of garbage, they found family oil portraits; hope chests jammed with unused piece goods, silks, wool, damask, and brocade; a half-dozen toy trains; 14 upright and grand pianos; chandeliers; tapestries; 13 ornate mantel clocks; 13 Oriental rugs; five violins; two organs, and Langley's certificate of merit for punctuality and good conduct from Public School 69 for the week ending April 19, 1895. . .

"By April 3, the Herald Tribune reported that the movers, in clearing only two first-floor rooms, had removed 51 tons of stuff. Another 52 tons later, on April 8, they found Langley's body. Police told the Sun that his clothing may have snagged a tripwire, releasing a booby trap that had buried him alive in paper."

Homer, an invalid, had died of starvation because his brother wasn't there to care for him.

This appalling, cautionary tale may be enough to scare many people into a minimalist lifestyle, but there's an alternative. If you truly have a passion for collecting -- not hoarding everything, but selectively acquiring certain items you love -- take heart from the story of Lester Glassner, who passed away a few weeks ago at the age of seventy. His obituary explains:

"The one-time picture editor, designer and art librarian for CBS Records had a massive collection of vintage movie memorabilia, dime-store merchandise and other pop-culture artifacts numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

"For more than three decades, Glassner's large and diverse collection filled his four-story 19th century brownstone home on Manhattan's Lower East Side.

'There are hats . . . mechanical toys . . . World War II propaganda posters . . . antique Seven Dwarfs of various types. . . . a huge collection of antique postcards of all types. And autographed photos of famous people.' [his sister said]

"That's not to mention chalk, ceramic and porcelain figurines, rare celluloid toys, Halloween masks, clothes, antique sleighs, dolls, 78-revolutions-per-minute records, art glass, movie posters, movie stills, lobby cards and a host of other items. Glassner's collection of movie stills alone numbers more than 250,000 photos, many of them rare.

"Louis Pappas, a friend and fellow collector . . . said, '[Glassner’s home] was almost like a museum, really, the whole place. I'd say it was one of the major collections in the world.'

"Before he died, Glassner made plans to donate more than 2,500 [18th and 19th century] books to the library at Buffalo State College. 'He also has a large collection of art, photography, architecture, fashion, painting and sculpture books, and those will go into the general collection,' [a library spokesperson] said."

Clearly, this was a man who loved his possessions. He displayed and cared for them for his own enjoyment and to share with others. Massive as the collections were, he kept them well-organized. In this photo of him as a young man, you can see how happy he is showing off some of his toys. There was even a book published in 1981 entitled, Dime Store Days, in which his collection was featured. He’s a perfect example of a collector.

The majority of people are not hoarders like the Collyer brothers, nor passionate collectors like Lester Glassner. However, most of us could take a cue from the state of California: if we have excess stuff taking up storage space or, worse, space in our homes, we might want to think of parting with it in a way that generates some cash to pay down debt or help out with living expenses. Unfortunately, unlike Arnold, autographing our junk won't increase its value.

© 2009 Cynthia Friedlob

Hoarding: Clutter as Pathology

For the last year or so I’ve been debating whether or not I should write a follow-up workbook to complement my book, Sorting It Out: One Disorganized Woman Solves the Problem of Too Much Stuff. During this time, I've searched the Amazon.com listings on occasion and watched as more and more books about uncluttering were being published. Today’s search revealed that there are 81,471 books that use the word “clutter” either in the title or somewhere in the book.

Of course, we can exclude from the list the obviously unrelated tomes such as Sidelobe Canceller Jamming Using Hot-Clutter, a naval post-graduate school report provided to the Pentagon; and Timber Management: A Quantitative Approach, written by a gentleman named Jerome L. Clutter; as well as plenty of others in which the word “clutter” just happens to appear in the text.

Let's even speculate wildly that ninety-five percent of the 81,471 books don’t have a thing to do with letting go of household clutter and getting organized. That would still leave over 4,000 books on the topic. Could there possibly be anything more to say that would be of value? It seems unlikely. As a result, even though the problem of clutter is clearly a hot topic for a substantial number of people, I’ve decided to pass on the opportunity to add to the clutter of uncluttering books.

However, I do want to take a moment to discuss the extreme form of hanging on to useless stuff: hoarding. This is a serious condition, as I was reminded recently by a fairly horrifying account from Ronni Bennett on her excellent blog, Time Goes By. She wrote about her grandmother, whom she barely knew, and the distressing discovery, when Grandma Hazel passed away, that she had been a hoarder.

I offered the following information in comments on Ronni’s blog; I’ve mentioned some of it here in the past, but it’s worth repeating in case you know someone who has a problem with the compulsive accumulation of clutter.

Hoarding is a condition that is not well understood today, especially by lay people, and it was understood even less in Ronni’s grandmother's time. But it is important, I think, to understand that it is a mental illness, not just "laziness" or a "lifestyle choice" as some people think.

The University of San Diego's Psychiatry Department estimates that hoarding affects 1.2 million people in the U.S., but it's difficult to know the extent because of the secrecy and shame associated with the disorder. Also, surprisingly, a hoarder may avoid revealing her situation by presenting herself to the world in a perfectly acceptable, conventional way (as Ronni’s grandmother did by always standing on the curb in front of her home to be picked up rather than allowing someone to come inside).

The Obsessive Compulsive Foundation devotes a portion of its website to hoarding. The Q&A page gives concise and useful information.

There is also a website called Children of Hoarders for adult children of parents or guardians who have or had this devastating problem. (See this 2001 post from the distraught daughter of a hoarder showing photos of her mother's home. This hoarder's home is relatively "organized," filled primarily with neat stacks of boxes and even some collections on display -- none of the seemingly random piles and bags of trash, garbage and the accompanying infestations often associated with hoarders' homes. Also, notice in the final photo that there's nothing unusual about the way her smiling mother looks.)

Although I sometimes teach workshops on uncluttering, I haven't had any personal experience dealing with hoarders. I do know of several people who have tried to help hoarder friends and family members and found it was a thankless task. Even professional intervention often fails completely, although that certainly doesn’t mean that help shouldn’t be sought.

If you read the disturbing story about Ronni’s grandmother, you’ll see that her isolation and loneliness helped her to hide her hoarding problem and added to the tragedy of how she lived during her mature years. After I read it, I was even more appreciative of my very sociable, well-liked eighty-seven-year-old mother and her beautiful, uncluttered little apartment. She's an inspiration.

Thanks, Mom.


© 2009 Cynthia Friedlob

Photo credit: Matt Banks

FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Someday Syndrome Interview

I was pleased to be interviewed for Alex Fayle's fascinating and helpful website and blog, "Someday Syndrome." The interview was posted today. Here's the link.

Alex is a professional organizer and writer; he's originally from Canada and now lives in Spain. He spent his first couple of years as a blogger writing about his own successful quest to stop postponing his goals and dreams until "someday." Recently he began calling upon friends, relatives and blogging buddies to share their experiences battling procrastination about important things in their lives.

I hope you'll stop by to read the interview and take a look at Alex's site. He even offers a nine week course to help you along if you feel like you've got the dreaded Someday Syndrome! (He's kindly sending it to me and I'm enjoying reading it.)

It's Not Stuff, It's Art

Unless you're a survivalist or a Freegan, with little more than a backpack full of basics, or unless you're a person who shops exclusively at thrift and antique stores or Freecycle, eventually you're going to have to buy something new.

Being a thoughtful consumer, you'll want to maximize the value of your purchase, whether it's household furnishings or clothing or even something decorative or artistic -- yes, thoughtful consumers are not required to sacrifice to the point that they never buy anything simply because it's beautiful or it lifts their spirits. Having beautiful objects in a beautiful environment is a worthy goal for those of us fortunate enough not to worry about meeting our daily living needs.

But have you ever given thought to the fact that someone, or a team of someones, must design whatever it is that you buy? By focusing our attention on this part of the process of creating "stuff," we can become more aware and more sensitive when choosing what objects we want to have around us. If we choose wisely, we'll be content with what we have and not be tempted to buy simply for the sake of buying.

When shopping for anything, whether it's new or "new to you," there are only two criteria to consider: the design of the item must be both attractive and functional, otherwise it's of little use. ("Functional" includes those items that are spirit-lifting.) There are many clever ways to reuse and recycle older items, but I also find it interesting to learn more about designers who have made names for themselves by coming up with new items that fit those criteria.

Karim Rashid has designed products that I think are innovative and interesting, although many are pricey and rely on manufacturing from non-renewable resources. But I do find his overall design philosophy appealing:

"Every business should be completely concerned with beauty - it is after all a collective human need. I believe that we could be living in an entirely different world - one that is full of real contemporary inspiring objects, spaces, places, worlds, spirits and experiences. . . Design is about the betterment of our lives poetically, aesthetically, experientially, sensorially, and emotionally. My real desire is to see people live in the modus of our time, to participate in the contemporary world, and to release themselves from nostalgia, antiquated traditions, old rituals, kitsch and the meaningless. We should be conscious and attune with this world in this moment. If human nature is to live in the past - to change the world is to change human nature."

These are not the statements of someone who's just designing "stuff" -- and they're not the words of someone who mindlessly clings to things out of sentiment. Rashid wants us to live in the moment, with things surrounding us that enhance that moment.

Michael Graves, already well-known as an architect, became quite famous as a result of his designs of many household objects for Target. In an article in MetropolisMag.com, writer John Hockenberry states, "[Graves] has been an evangelist for beauty and humor in product design, as in his famous silver conical Alessi teapot as well as his buildings all over the world." By designing for Target, he's also demonstrated that good design should be affordable, too.

Just a few years ago, Graves suffered an illness that left him paralyzed from the waist down. He was so appalled by the ugliness and lack of functionality in his hospital environment, as well as in the designs of most products offered to people with disabilities, that now, Hockenberry reports, "Graves and his team are hard at work on a line of products that fuse one-dimensional medical utility with style, multifunctional elegance, and beauty. . . He says it all comes back to the choice of whether to make something beautiful or to tolerate something ugly. Allowing something to be simply ugly leads to permitting something that's not functional, that doesn't work right, that can be unsafe. . . 'Look around you: people can tolerate a lot of bad design,' he says with a twinkling smile to his staff, who have heard it all before. 'I can't tolerate any of it, of course. And I won't.'"

Graves' personal tragedy will result in wonderful improvements in design for medical devices and for people with disabilities. Perhaps he'll tackle the larger design issues of hospitals, which are usually some of the most ill-conceived, depressing environments one can encounter.

What happens when a fine artist designs? Andrea Zittel is one fascinating example. She creates everything from clothing to modular living units, "trying to combine design, craft and art." I became interested in her when I learned of her A-Z Uniform project which she worked on from 1991 to 2002. In her own words:

"Most of us own a favorite garment that always makes us look and feel good, but social etiquette dictates that we wear a different change of clothes every day. Sometimes this multitude of options can actually feel more restrictive than a self-imposed constant. Because I was tired of the tyranny of constant variety, I began a six-month uniform project. Starting in 1991 I would design and make one perfect dress for each season, and would then wear that dress every day for six months. Although utilitarian in principle, I often found that there was a strong element of fantasy or emotional need invested in each season's design. The experiment as a whole worked quite well, especially since dreaming up the next season's design helped relieve any monotony that might have occurred from wearing the same dress every day."

Because Zittel's an artist, her process moved on to creating uniforms from fabric torn from the bolt, then to making clothing by crocheting a single strand, and finally to using felt. Just thinking about her work can help us reconceptualize our relationship to our clothes: how many we need, how they're made, what purposes they serve when we wear them.

Performance artist Alex Martin also tackled the issue of fashion in her Brown Dress project. She made a brown dress which she wore each day for an entire year, from July 2005 to July 2006. Her reasoning:

"I made one small, personal attempt to confront consumerism by refusing to change my dress for 365 days. In this performance, I challenged myself to reject the economic system that pushes over-consumption, and the bill of goods that has been sold, especially to women, about what makes a person good, attractive and interesting. Clothes are a big part of this image, and the expectation in time, effort, and financial investment is immense."

Martin's current project:

". . . a wardrobe of my own devising -- recycled, re-mixed, re-fabbed . . . only things I made myself (clothes, jewelry, shoes, underwear, bags, everything) and my source materials were clothing items already in my possession - a completely closed loop, 100% recycled from my own closet."

Through this project, Martin offers another commentary on consumer culture, self-reliance, and creating things that are aesthetically pleasing as well as functional.

If we stop looking at our stuff as "stuff" and begin to look at each of our objects as the result of artistic expression, we'll have more appreciation for them. Then living with our carefully chosen possessions rather than just a bunch of stuff will mean paying attention to their beauty. Living in an environment that's not cluttered will be necessary to allow us to see the objects we've chosen and enjoy them. It's a shift in thinking that I believe would affect the way we look at everything in the world: seeking beauty and function, then being grateful when we find it.

Stuff is not just "stuff." Each thing has been designed, each thing is art, each thing is an opportunity to enhance our lives. Is your stuff good art or not so good art? Is it enhancing your life or detracting from it? Is your home an artistic expression of who you are or are you living in a Museum of Mess?

(c) 2007 Cynthia Friedlob

The Emotional Sponge and Clutter

I've recently discovered a great blog called Psychology of Clutter by Dr. Amie Ragan, a licensed clinical psychologist who often works with people who have difficulty dealing with clutter. I was particularly interested in her posts about "Emotional Sponges."

Dr. Ragan describes an Emotional Sponge as someone who engages in "the act of soaking up what other people throw at you (criticism, negativity, problems) without ever questioning whether or not you need, want or deserve it." (Words in italics are mine.) I'd like to add: whether or not there's anything you can do about it. We all want to be compassionate listeners and helpers to our friends and loved ones, even in situations where the best we can offer is a sympathetic ear. But some of us take on the responsibility for "fixing" a situation when we're not the ones who can fix it.

Unless you're under attack by one of Dr. Ragan's "Psychic Vampires" (a person who actually enjoys making you feel bad about yourself, in which case, please turn and run immediately or at least carry a psychological wooden stake!), chances are that you'll get caught in the unfortunate position of being an Emotional Sponge occasionally, primarily thanks to the folks I have unceremoniously labeled the Deadly Dumpers.

We've all encountered people who seem to specialize in unloading their personal problems on others. These are not people who are going through a rough patch in their lives; they are people who see life as one gigantic rough patch. You probably have noticed that these people have the remarkable ability to suck all the energy right out of a room. Your primal response is to try to avoid them just to save yourself. These Dumpers usually present themselves as ever-suffering victims of circumstances beyond their control. Sometimes there are what we all would agree are "valid" reasons for their unhappiness and depression, but I suspect that Dr. Ragan would want to help them rework their thinking about those circumstances, whatever they might be, so that they could function more effectively and more joyfully in their lives.

There are also people who seem to specialize in focusing on the "doomed" state of everything from office politics to the fate of the world, unloading their despair or cynicism on all who will listen. Again, these are not people pointing out specific problems in order to have a thoughtful discussion about them; these are people who will squash any notion that there is even hope for a satisfactory resolution and insist that all efforts are pointless. Obviously, they are equally capable of sapping the energy from anyone they encounter. Most often they also are seriously depressed and in need of psychological help. But, oddly, I've noticed that sometimes someone who falls into this category is not depressed or even particulary personally disturbed, but instead actually appears to enjoy the process of lamenting the state of things and "proving" that the situation is utterly hopeless. I wonder if this isn't some rationalization that allows them to remove themselves from any responsibility for taking action to facilitate change, or perhaps their cynicism is an effort to seem "sophisticated" in the way that a young teenager might affect discontent as a demonstration of "maturity." I'll leave the professional analysis of this phenomenon to Dr. Ragan and other trained specialists.

However, in each case, we innocent, unwitting souls, just trying to get on with our day, dealing with our own challenges, finding joy where we may, easily can fall prey to these Deadly Dumpers. If we have the unfortunate tendency to be Emotional Sponges, we will absorb all the negativity they unload and stand there feeling horrible. But they will walk away either trapped in their own, narrowly focused agony or, in the latter case, no worse for wear because dumping all that negativity doesn't bother them. Either way, it's not a good deal for the Sponge.

Dr. Ragan's clever solution to help you stop being an Emotional Sponge is to think of yourself as a bowl rather than a sponge. I love this imagery which allows you to hold on to whatever comes your way, then pour out whatever you don't want to keep, whenever you want to do so. Clearly there are some people you'll still want to avoid, but should a Deadly Dumper be thrust upon you in circumstances where you can't duck out a side door, extricate yourself as quickly as you can, then pour out the unpleasant and totally useless negative contents of your bowl. Ah! Relief!

And how does all this apply to clutter? Let's consider an Emotional Sponge as someone who retains possessions out of sentiment, feelings of obligation, perhaps even fear of loss or change, someone who must be uncomfortably "squeezed" to release stuff. A "bowl" (I think I'll use the term "Beautiful Bowl") understands that all possessions, no matter what they are, no matter what their value, are only temporary, most certainly in the larger sense. Therefore the Beautiful Bowl is able to use them up, enjoy them while it's appropriate, and release them - pour them right out - without great difficulty when the time is right. A Beautiful Bowl can pour out lovely things, too, to give away to others, again, when the time is right. Most importantly, a Beautiful Bowl remains beautiful by not being filled to the brim with unappealing contents.

And what does a Beautiful Bowl do with its most special contents, its favorite memories and the love of family and friends? Let's think of one more kitchen analogy. Great chefs know that you never, ever scrub a wok or a cast iron skillet after using it. You wipe and clean it gently, but you allow it to build up a coating, a patina referred to as "seasoning." I like to think of those special contents as the patina that's never washed away from our well-seasoned Beautiful Bowl; those memories and that love will stay with us forever.

(c) 2007 Cynthia Friedlob

Are There Any Simple Decisions?

The concept of being a thoughtful consumer quite easily leads to considerations of being an ethical consumer. But isn't this quicksand for many of us who are coping with already having consumed too much, too thoughtlessly? How can we worry about making the "right" purchasing choices in the future when we've already done such a lousy job with our past choices that we're positively drowning in stuff?

Clearly the primary concern for those of us dealing with clutter is unloading our excess possessions. This is a good time for a reminder that clutter doesn't necessarily mean junk; clutter is simply a quantity of stuff that is so large that it interferes with living our lives joyfully. It's not always as obvious as stacks and stacks of unread magazines that never will be read and now have become a fire hazard. A closet full of lovely clothes that don't get worn because they no longer fit is a closet full of clutter. A kitchen full of exotic cooking gadgets that never get used because you only enjoy cooking simple meals is a kitchen full of clutter. If it doesn't leave you room to live the way you want to live, if it doesn't leave you space to breathe, if it weighs you down in your mind, it's clutter and it's got to go. Working through that process of elimination obviously must be the priority for most of us.

But life goes on and every day we're faced with purchasing decisions, even as we sort and toss and clean and fervently vow that never again will we allow so many things to crowd our homes and burden our brains. So, why not try to make the right decision every time we buy something?

Well, first of all there's that pesky concept of "right" that needs to be defined. Do you only buy food that's organic because you believe it's healthier for you and your family? A good idea, but it can be expensive, it limits your product choices, and you may not live in an area with easy access to organic products. Must your clothes be manufactured only by companies that don't engage child labor? That does require determining which companies fit that category before you go shopping. Must your product choices be "made in America?" American companies now often have at least some part of their manufacturing done in other countries, so are they no longer producing "American" products? If you want to consider the impact your purchase has on the environment, how, exactly, do you assess it? For example, what about that lovely politically correct bamboo floor you're installing that required a huge amount of energy expenditure to transport the wood to this country? If you're a vegetarian, will you wear leather shoes?

Makes you want to scream, doesn't it?

Not only are there your personal beliefs that need to be clearly thought out and refined, there's also a huge amount of research that needs to be done in order to find out where a company or product fits into your criteria, once you've decided what's "right" for you. I've tortured my brain too often about this issue and, while I'll make every attempt not to be a fool in making my purchasing decisions, I have decided on a gentler approach that makes sense to me.

First, by simply reducing the quantity of purchases I make, I believe that I am favorably impacting the environment. When I do buy, whether I choose something used and give it new life, or buy something new of high quality so that it will last longer, I'm pretty certain that I'm demanding less of our limited supply of natural resources.

Second, I'm not totally oblivious to the news (although some days I'd truly like to be!), so if I'm made aware that certain companies engage in practices that I find offensive, I'll avoid their products. We live in a land of abundance, so it's not too hard to find an adequate substitute for almost anything we need to buy.

Finally, I'll try my best to consider what I know about the source of the product I'm buying, the people who make it, the process they use, its purpose in our world and the purpose it will serve in my own life. Just a momentary pause to think, even with limited information, will help me make better choices. Then, when I make some mistakes, because I can guarantee I will, I'll forgive myself and move on.

I made a choice today that I'm happy about: American Flatbread, an organic vegetarian pizza made in an artisan bakery in California and purchased at my local health food store. I often eat food that is not organic, I'm not a vegetarian, and I bought it because I was walking by the store and I didn't want to have to cook anything demanding for dinner. But I took a moment to read the box and liked what the company had to say. Result: it tasted great! I have no connection with the company and am not receiving any compensation for an endorsement; I'm just passing along a tip about a good product and using it as an example of how that brief pause before purchasing resulted in a satisfying experience.

On other occasions, I've also paused, reflected, purchased and ended up with something totally unsuccessful, so my system is hardly flawless. But more times than not, it has worked for me. So, if I take a few deep breaths, put the system into practice and make the leap of faith it requires, well, then at least I don't feel like I want to scream.

(c) 2007 Cynthia Friedlob

What Makes a House a Home?

My "decorating style," using the term as loosely as it can possibly be applied, is a combination of basic and functional furniture tossed in with a few bits of my grandmother's Victorian china; some handmade crafts created by my mother; a lot of books, some that belonged to my father; and a big, old, weighty, very rustic Mexican ranchero dining table. To describe it as "eclectic" might be a polite understatement. Our townhouse living room does double-duty as my workplace, so along with a couch and chair, there's a computer, an easel and (still too many) art supplies in it. Upstairs, my partner, The Writer, splits the large den in half, with one end devoted to his office and the other end providing a comfy spot for us to watch TV. Architectural Digest will not be coming anytime soon to photograph our interiors, but they work well for us. And I've had sit-down dinner parties for as many as eight where everyone hung out in the kitchen and around the dining table anyway, as people often do at social gatherings, so we find our home an enjoyable place to entertain.

If you've read my book, you know that in our on-going downsizing process I've already parted with a house-load of treasured, inherited antique furniture; crystal and dinnerware; and my dearly loved childhood piano. I finally had to realize that even though the pieces were beautiful and I certainly had sentimental attachment to them, they didn't serve us well in our day-to-day living. Also, they didn't feel like "me" anymore. I was moving on to another stage of my life in which function and a feeling of freedom, rather than style or sentiment, became my primary concerns. But there were some items that I kept because they still did feel like "me." When I see them, they make me happy and they make me feel at home. So I was intrigued when I received an e-mail from a reader telling me about her dilemma:

"I would feel uncomfortable in an austere, minimalist setting, and would quickly add some blankets, pillows, candles, books and other things to make it feel more homey. My problem is that when I've culled my stuff down to what I consider 'the essentials,' my husband complains that we can't have people in because the house is too messy. If I put more things away, I feel like I'm 'losing' parts of me - how will anyone know that this is my home if there are no signs of 'me' anywhere?"

What does it take to make your house your home? Unless you're happy living in a place that looks like the average hotel room, you will want things around that have meaning to you, perhaps because they remind you of your family history, a special event, your passion for your hobby, or maybe you just like the way they look. But how many things? Do you really need all of your golfing trophies displayed on the mantel? I don't know; maybe you do. Do you really need to be able to admire your collection of three hundred miniature porcelain poodles every day? That's certainly possible, though I would hope you'd have a lovely display case for them and not have them scattered on every surface. But how do you handle your partner/spouse/roommate's feeling that what you need is more than he or she can tolerate?

It's hard enough making these decisions on your own, but it's a very tricky task when sharing your living space with another person. If it's your space together, it should reflect that, but that doesn't mean that you each must give up your individual identities. I have several small shelves in the dining room displaying personal items I enjoy seeing; The Writer has matching shelves displaying his collection of things he enjoys. In his office area there are all kinds of items and photos that mark that territory as his; on my desk I have similar small objects that are easily identified as mine, and my paintings hang on many of our walls. There are also some items in our home that we think of as "ours." We're still in the process of paring down to the "essentials" and we both work at home, so, yes, things do get messy. But if other people are coming by, it doesn't take too long to whip the place into presentable shape. Whatever flaws remain are not important enough to prevent us from enjoying the company of friends and family and, fortunately, our visitors seem to enjoy being here, too.

So I wonder how a home that has been pared down to the essentials, as this reader states, could possibly be too "messy" to entertain other people. Either my dear reader is underestimating how many things are essential or her husband is only comfortable in the very simplest surroundings. And what about her husband? Does he have possessions that he displays in their home? Has he pared down to what's essential to him? Clearly there are too many unknown factors to be able to understand how this couple relates to each other or to their possessions, but based only on this limited information, either too much stuff, or the husband's perception of too much stuff, is causing a problem that they have not been able to resolve.

Unless your home is quite obviously overtaken by clutter (you know who you are!), if you are unable to navigate through it and are embarrassed to have other people see it in its current catastrophic state, the decision about what's essential is a very personal one. Unfortunately, this husband and wife appear to have dramatically opposing viewpoints on the subject, and it's resulted in them not being able to enjoy visits from family and friends. This is a situation where an objective third party can be very helpful. A trusted spiritual advisor, a counselor or perhaps a qualified professional organizer could facilitate a dialogue and work out a compromise that would allow each of them to feel that their needs are being mutually respected and that their individual identities are reflected in their home. Then they could get on with truly living in it.

If you share your home with someone else, or with your entire family, I sincerely hope that you don't allow stuff to get in the way of your relationships. Stuff is just stuff; these other people are an important part of your life. If you value them, please get help to find a way to handle any significant conflicts you have over the things that you own.

The most important thing that makes a house a home is the contentment of the people who live there.

(c) 2007 Cynthia Friedlob

Attacking the Attack on Clutter - Part Two

Professional organizer Jeri Dansky kindly provided a link on her site (see comments on my previous post) to the December 28th "NPR: Talk of the Nation" program featuring David Freedman, one of the authors of A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder, in conversation with pro organizer Kathy Waddill. I found it to be an interesting show and it further confirmed my belief that there is absolutely nothing perfect about a mess. It also confirmed my suspicion that it's helpful to explain what we mean by the term "organized."

On the broadcast, Ms. Waddill made an important point by stressing that organization is not about neatness so much as it is about function. Most of us who struggle to get organized are not suffering from some sort of neurotic need for rigid orderliness; we just want to be able to find what we want when we want it, then we want to have sufficient space to use whatever it is that we just found. If I want to bake a cake, I want to be able to get out the cake pan without having to empty my entire kitchen cupboard. Then I want to have enough room on the kitchen countertop to work there without having to relocate a week's worth of mail, a sweater, and an accumulation of expired coupons. Otherwise, I'm annoyed. To avoid being annoyed, that means that I must not allow a bunch of extra plastic containers to accumulate in my cabinet where they will just be in the way; I must have a more appropriate place to stash my mail; I must have a place to hang up my sweater; and, in my particular case, I must forget about saving coupons because I seem to be incapable of remembering to use them -- I applaud those who do remember, but because I don't, it's better for me to skip the mental torture of consistent failure on this one small task.

"Organized" is a word that has unfairly acquired a negative connotation. It often seems to be used to define to some mythical state of perfection that we'll never achieve anyway and it's usually applied snidely to people who seem to be compulsively neat. If we simply substitute the word "functional," or some variation of it, we can better indicate what most of us are trying to achieve. "Organized" sounds final; "functional" sounds fluid, flexible, as if changes still can be made as a process unfolds. Having a functional home and office is a realistic goal, because life is not static. A functional home and office are not always ready for a photo-op, but they can be made ready fairly quickly because they are set up to function efficiently.

"Messy," on the other hand, is a condition that interferes with good functioning. The fact that a few rare souls are able to function amidst a mess ("The mortgage papers? Why they're three inches down in that big pile behind the potted palm, just to the left of the orange crate full of Junior's old toys.") does not mean it's a desirable condition. It's simply a situation that lacks a functional system.

Every household has systems of some kind for just about everything that goes on, but for some, they're disorderly, inefficient systems that result in a dysfunctional household. Here's a small example: if your "system" is to toss the mail wherever there's an empty surface to "deal with it later," chances are you're going to lose track of some of your mail. Probably there will be some bills in there that won't get paid. This could get your phone turned off, affect your credit rating, or just be embarrassing the next time you go to your doctor's office and are told in front of a full waiting room that your payment is overdue. It's a system that doesn't work, so you need a new system. If you decide that you want one and can't come up on your own with something that works, chances are you'll consult a book (or many, many books) about organizing, or perhaps hire a professional organizer for help. Systems must function for individual personalities within the context of their living and working situations, so you'll have to figure out what system will function best for you.

But what's the first thing any useful organizing book or any pro organizer worth her color-coded manila folders would tell you? Get rid of any unnecessary stuff before you set up your system so that all you have left to organize is what you truly need. Unfortunately, this particular crucial issue didn't get discussed on the NPR show, but it is the underlying problem that creates most messes: we simply have too much stuff.

So, once again, I suggest that you not get caught up worrying about "organizing" and, instead, focus on eliminating everything that you don't need to function. In your home, that doesn't mean that you must throw out every single one of your decorative items or your favorite collections; in your office, it doesn't mean randomly bagging every pile of papers and trashing them (no matter how tempting that may seem!). It means that to begin your process of setting up functional living and working systems, you must determine, honestly, what you need. You'll find that you need less than you have!

(c) 2007 Cynthia Friedlob

Attacking the Attack on Clutter

A frustrating article by Penelope Green in the New York Times, reprinted in the Los Angeles Daily News with the slightly altered title, "Embrace the Clutter," has caused me distress. It's not because she informed me that January is "Get Organized Month," the result of a successful public relations effort on the part of the National Association of Professional Organizers. They have my wholehearted support; I'm impressed that they're organized enough to get a month of acclaim devoted to their profession.

No, it's because she is reporting on an "anti-anti-clutter movement" which says that messy is fine, messy is creative, messy is life lived with gusto. In fact, David H. Freedman and Eric Abrahamson have written a book about that very point of view called A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder. Rabbi Irwin Kula is the author of another tome entitled, Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life, that Ms. Green includes in her article, for reasons that elude me, as I will explain later.

I have not read the Freedman/Abrahamson argument in favor of clutter nor the rabbi's learned musings on the general messiness of life and I am loathe to criticize anything I have not read. One risks jumping to incorrect conclusions based on the interpretation of others. However, risky though it may be, I will share some thoughts I derived from reading Ms. Green's article. Needless to say, I'm a bit vexed.

Frustration Number One: I am unclear why Rabbi Kula's book has been tossed into the same category as the Freedman/Abrahamson book. Not having read it, and having perused only the editorial and reader reviews on Amazon.com, I'm working admittedly from second-hand information. However, I have the very strong impression that the rabbi has written a spiritually uplifting book to help us through the messiness of everyday living, not the messiness in our homes. It appears that he is encouraging us to accept change as inevitable, to get comfortable with the reality that we and our lives can never be perfect. This is a very tenable position. In fact, I've often discussed that fact that the quest for perfection undermines many of us who face difficulties handling clutter.

Unfortunately, Ms. Green quotes Rabbi Kula from her interview as follows: "Order can be profane and life diminishing . . . if you've never had a messy kitchen, you've probably never had a home-cooked meal." From a Stuff Sufferer's point of view, however, we know that if you start out with a truly messy kitchen, you can't make a decent home-cooked meal! And chaos in the form of clutter can be pretty darn profane and life diminishing, too, if it prevents you from functioning and mentally paralyzes you the minute you open your front door. For most of us who suffer from this standard "profane" messiness resulting from too many unnecessary possessions scattered around in disarray, well, we'd be thrilled to have a little control over our surroundings so that we could get on with more important things in our lives.

But, the rabbi's quote aside, it seems clear that his book is not about advocating leaving the Hanukkah menorah on display until July or expecting the members of his congregation to step casually over random piles of miscellaneous stuff should they come to call at his home. Perhaps his book was included in Ms. Green's article solely because of its title. If anyone who has read it can enlighten me further, I welcome your comments.

Frustration Number Two: On the other hand, we have the alleged . . . Hidden Benefits of Disorder. Again, based on information provided by Ms. Green's article; the editorial reviews on Amazon.com; and the book's helpfully specific subtitle: How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place, this book makes an effort to deliver the "clutter is good" message. It is listed as a business book that wants businesses and organizations to be more open, less rigid, and less organized, and it has some documentation to back up this position.

Of course, there is a big difference between being rigid and being organized, and an equally large difference between being open to possibilities and being so unstructured that opportunities escape amidst chaos. Also, although this is a book dedicated to advising businesses and organizations, those entities are composed of individuals. I expect the book's approach will hold great appeal for some people who have become so unorganized that they've lost control of their lives and encourage them to decide that, hey, this mess is okay after all because I'm just a creative, spontaneous kind of person. Again, I welcome comments from readers who can shed further light.

But back to Ms. Green's article. I was particularly bemused by the concept that messiness is desirable because it allows for adaptability to whatever situation presents itself. Authors Freedman and Abrahamson use as an example Arnold Schwarzenegger's refusal to have a daily schedule; I hope they also mention Arnold's huge staff of subordinates and advisers who try to cope with that situation and steer him in ways that will make him effective in spite of his constantly open calendar. I wonder if they mention if this causes those people any stress.

I'd also enjoy hearing the authors explain their odd thinking on another point, as reported by Ms. Green: "The most valuable dividend of living with mess may be time." Have they never had to search for their car keys buried somewhere on a clutter-laden countertop? Have they never panicked over "misplacing" that crucial stack of paperwork that means the difference between keeping and losing a client? Have they never forgotten to turn on the dishwasher, with another full load of dishes already waiting in the sink? Have they never pulled a wrinkled suit out of their crammed closets and wished it had been ironed?

Oh, wait a minute. These authors are men! Alas, no matter how far "gender awareness" and the sharing of family responsibilities may have progressed over the last several decades, it is still the woman's job to take care of running the household in the vast majority of homes across the land. So, let's consider this quote from Ms. Green's article: "(author David) Freedman, who has three children and a hard-working spouse, Laurie Tobey-Freedman, a pre-school special-needs coordinator, is studying Mandarin in his precious spare time." Hmmm. Mr. Freedman, I have to wonder how that hard-working spouse of yours feels about your conclusion that messiness leads to more free time. Of course, it's possible she's of the same mind as you; perhaps two clutter-tolerant people found love based, at least in some small part, on their shared belief in the value of being untidy. But, just out of curiosity, who does the laundry at your house? Who gets the lunches together for the kids to take to school? Who does the chauffeuring of those kids? If I asked you to lay your hands on last month's bank statement, could you do it? And, by the way, I'd also like to know if Ms. Tobey-Freedman is studying Cantonese in her precious spare hours?

Ms. Green also quotes from a rather astonishing interview conducted with Jerrold Pollak, a neuropsychologist at a mental health center in New Hampshire, "whose work involves helping people tolerate the inherent disorder in their lives." He states that he lives in "a world of total clutter . . . My wife has threatened divorce over all the piles . . . If we had kids, the health department would have to be alerted. But what can I do?" Oh, the irony! Get some therapy, Dr. Pollack. Fast. There's a dramatic difference between teaching people useful coping skills to handle the inevitable twists of fate they must endure in their lives and ending up with a ruined marriage because you can't get it together to buy a filing cabinet.

Let's be clear: clutter is not simply the remnants of daily life. Of course our rooms will rarely look ready for a magazine photograph; we live in our homes. But a joyful mess is one that is created in the process of living, not the process of accumulating, or stacking, or storing, or stumbling over. There's no reason to defend messiness when it's just clutter that's out of control. It gets in our way, literally and psychologically, creating a huge obstacle that prevents us from living fully. It's very simply the result of too much stuff. No one should have any illusions that perfection is achievable, or even desirable. But no one should have to settle for an environment that is overcrowded, unsatisfying and dysfunctional when getting rid of clutter would solve the problem.

So, please, if there are any sadly misguided advocates of messiness who might be reading this, don't try to convince those of us who suffer from a cluttered environment that it's okay to live that way. We're just struggling to get or keep a little order in our lives and are not "humorless and inflexible prigs (with) way too much time on (our) hands" (thank you for the pithy description, Ms. Green). We're people who are trying very hard to reclaim our time, our flexibility, and our sanity. And, believe me, we absolutely must have a sense of humor to get through this process.

But, right now, having learned that there is any effort at all to advocate messiness, I must confess that I am not laughing.

(c) 2007 Cynthia Friedlob

'Tis the Season to Lighten Up!

It's commonly accepted that the holiday season can produce stress of monumental proportions. For reasons perhaps best understood by psychiatrists and psychologists, many of us create much of that stress because we seem determined to make everything perfect: the holiday decorations, the holiday meal, the holiday gifts. For those of us who already have perfectionist tendencies -- and often people who struggle with clutter actually do so because they are perfectionists, difficult as that may be for "regular" people to understand -- this can create a level of anxiety that makes us want to decamp to a remote mountain top and hide in a cave. Add to that those fast-approaching New Year's resolutions that are usually uncomfortable repeats of the ones we made last year and, well, we may want to stay in that cave like a hibernating bear until spring and skip the whole traumatic experience.

Let's get a grip! This is a holiday season, not an endurance test. And let's be honest about our feelings: seeking perfection is usually about us trying to do what we think we're "supposed" to do, not what others actually want or expect. In fact, if you have someone in your life who wants you to be perfect, you're dealing with a person who is delusional. Rule of Life: no one is perfect and no one should expect anyone else to be perfect. The best we can hope for is to make the holidays as enjoyable as possible for the people we care about. That requires a more realistic approach to handling our time and energy so that we can enjoy the experience, too.

In our household we've managed to pare down both the gift list and the decorating over the years to a manageable bare minimum. We have a simple holiday meal with the immediate family and one or two guests. I save my major entertaining for a Chinese New Year party in February. I made that decision quite a few years ago and friends now look forward to my unusual annual event rather than worrying about trying to squeeze in another party during party-packed December.

But I confess that I still feel stressed sometimes anyway, probably as a result of my own perfectionist tendencies which cause me to compare everything I do with my memories of my childhood holidays. I have the good fortune to have very happy memories, thanks primarily to my incredibly organized mother's skills at creating a charmingly decorated home, preparing delicious meals, and selecting special gifts -- all while thoroughly enjoying herself and not worrying at all about perfection. Yet she even made the gift-wrapping look exceptional, pleating different colored tissue papers, mixing different paper designs, hand-tying unusual bows. Looking back I realize that many of my gifts were quite practical, yet they were still exciting to receive because they were wrapped so beautifully. And there was always some truly special item that I particularly wanted that I was lucky enough to receive, too. I also realize that it took a lot of effort and frugal spending throughout the year to make the holidays enjoyable for my family. Mom's a tough act to follow, although now that she's moved to Los Angeles and shares the holidays at our home, she kindly insists that I'm doing just fine.

But there was a ten-year stretch in which my mother faced this time of year alone. My father had passed away and Mom was living in a small town. She never wanted me to travel there during the usually snowy weather (a long drive was required following the flight), but she was not about to mope around or rely on friends to entertain her. Instead she volunteered every Thanksgiving and Christmas for the Rescue Mission, an organization that served a full holiday meal to everyone, not just the homeless or poor population, but every single person in the whole town who wanted to attend. Now, that's a friendly town! Obviously, this was a major community event requiring many, many volunteers and the generous donations of several businesses, including the use of the huge, newly renovated, historic former train depot, which was always specially decorated for the event. This lovely, sit-down dinner was a great success with a cross-section of the town's residents but it was especially popular with senior citizens who were on fixed incomes and alone for the holidays. Mom always had a wonderful time helping out with the baking and serving the meals. What could be a more inspiring example of the true spirit of the holidays?

So, instead of feeling stressed about trying to be perfect, let's just admit that we'll never be perfect anyway and take a look at what this season offers us: we have a chance to give to others, a chance to share with family and friends, a chance to feel the joy of being a part of something larger and more significant than any pointless attempts to create some imaginary "perfect" holiday. Let's not miss our chance.

© 2006 Cynthia Friedlob

Too Much Very Fine Stuff

Years ago I attended a glamorous party at the lavishly furnished Beverly Hills home of a Hollywood icon. His long career had provided many awards, mementos, photos with other famous people, and an income that allowed him to purchase whatever elegant accessories caught his fancy. The party was a thrill, but the house was positively claustrophobic! Furniture crammed tightly into each room. Every flat surface covered with collectibles, photos, decorations. Walls smothered with paintings and more photos. That was when I realized how easily even expensive, beautiful and sentimental possessions can turn into plain old clutter.

I happen to be a fan of modernism. I like the sleek lines, the lack of ornamentation. I also like the Japanese design aesthetic. If I were completely re-decorating our home, I'd probably look to a Zen monastery for inspiration. But I didn't always feel this way.

I inherited lovely 19th and early 20th century furniture, dishes and decorative items from my grandparents, and purchased many other antiques on my own. I collected Victorian teacups and plates with roses on them. I once bought a massive 18th century English linen press that we used for years as a dresser. (My partner, The Writer, hated it and said it looked like a huge coffin, but he's always been more concerned with function than form.) I truly enjoyed living with all these things for most of my adult life.

Then, several years ago, something changed. I can't explain it, I can't point to a particular moment in which I had an epiphany about it, but gradually I had to admit to myself that my beautiful antiques no longer "worked" with the way I live my life. I discuss in my book the process of letting go of most (no, not all) of these things that I valued so highly and associated with wonderful family memories. It wasn't an easy process, but it was rather liberating. The small number of dishes, decorative and personal items that I kept now feels quite manageable to me. Instead of antiques, empty space with no clutter has become my most sought-after "collectible."

So, I was interested to read recently in the L.A. Times an article by Jeff Spurrier spotlighting decorating trends. He reports on what he calls the home interior "vanishing act" that started in the kitchen some years ago with paneling that covers the appliances so that they blend into the cabinetry. According to Spurrier, other parts of the home are reflecting "our growing penchant for a clutter-free life." Now, in addition to hidden dishwashers, refrigerators and microwaves, we have such things as ceiling fans with retractable blades, medicine cabinets that pivot from the wall on the back of full-length mirrors, and, most amusingly, a "BenchToilet" in which the entire commode can be concealed by a teak panel that slides over the top of a long stainless steel cabinet that surrounds the fixture. This particular item will be available in Southern California next year and will cost $11,475 to $13,345 (plus the cost of the toilet). I'd suggest that there are many less expensive ways to eliminate visual clutter, but I do admire the spirit and ingenuity of the designers!

Of course, you don't need to be a modernist to enjoy a clutter-free home. I have friends who have lovely traditional furnishings in their very comfortably livable homes. And those homes all have some things in common: collections are contained, not scattered haphazardly everywhere; furniture is placed in such a way that there's plenty of room to move around it; and the decorative items in each home reflect the personalities of the people who live there. I try to achieve that in our rather eclectically furnished home, too, though it takes me a bit of extra effort. But I think a home is always a work in progress. At least it's nice to feel like this one is headed in the right direction.

© 2006 Cynthia Friedlob