To bring everyone back up to speed, during the month of October I divested my home of one item a day because
So how did that work for you, Gail, you may ask? Remarkably well.
During the first week, I noticed that I was close to emptying a drawer in the kitchen. And then I thought, Hey, I could start keeping the junk in that basket
on the counter,
in this drawer. Clean(er) counters make for a more organized environment.
Then I realized that just getting rid of thirty random items out of an entire house wasn't going to do much to help me organize my environment, improve my impulse control, and manage my time. But focusing on specific areas, like that kitchen counter, could. Thus I got rid of table cloths from the china cabinet in the dining room so that I won't have to spend time on my knees in front of it looking for linens when I'm expecting guests. I worked on the pantry so I, well, could walk through it, to be honest.
I got rid of some random things, too. But, really, the way to get a usable result from a possession purge is to apply a little logic, do a little planning. I may do an annual purge.
The Last Week's Most Interesting Ditched Item
Actually, I did this after the end of October, but I got the idea back in September. I don't use wine glasses at home, myself, because years ago I saw
Nikita and Michael drinking wine from from tumblers, and I thought, Gee, that's kind of cool. And what was cooler? Tumblers could go in the dishwasher.
So when a waitress in a restaurant in Ohio brought me my wine in a highball glass, I thought, Hey, I'm getting myself some of these things.
But, Gail, you're probably thinking at this point, how will being the only woman in your town serving guests wine in what are glorified juice glasses do anything about your use of time?
Answer: As God is my witness, I will never spend so much as a minute washing and drying stemmed glasses again.
Earlier this year, I heard about the
Environmental Disorder study, which found that a disorganized environment can undermine impulse control. Lack of impulse control is what leads one to hunt for pictures of George Clooney's wedding instead of working. In August I read that
owning a lot of stuff is time consuming because you have to take care of it. And then just last month I read that
one paragraph in Overwhelmed about the Danes not buying and saving a lot of stuff. And, according to
Overwhelmed, the Danes are good with time.
The Plan For October
I'm a big believer in
managing all our time, not just our work time. Hunting through piles of possessions... shoving things out of the way...if stuff both undermines self-control and takes up time, then stuff is something I'd like to have less of. So this month, I'm following the example of
Joshua Fields Millburn who got rid of a possession a day for thirty days. I started last Wednesday.
This isn't that big a stretch for me, to be honest. We've kept a "church tag sale" box and a "library book sale" bag for years. I'm not talking about something I'm going to find painful. I have been concerned, though, that because we try to unload regularly, I won't have 30 days worth of meaningless material to offload on relatives or the community. However, this first week I could have done more than one item a day, and one day I did.
This means that, like so many others, I'm living with pileup that may be impacting my control and costing me time I'd like to use on other things. Like writing, for instance.
I will, of course, issue a report on how my month goes. Hmm. A month. That's
a unit of time. A long one, but a unit nonetheless.
This Week's Most Interesting Ditched Item
When my kids were little, I asked for these walkie-talkies for my birthday because I read a book that suggested to me that we could use them for playing hide-and-seek. I think we used them once, which is why they look like new. Not only is my heart not broken to see these things go, the drawer they were in had a wealth of other junk I can get rid of. (I just want to go on record as saying I wasn't the one who saved all those swizzle sticks.)
I could end up with an empty drawer in my kitchen by the time I'm done.
Did you read Procrastination Is In Your Genes at CNN Health and everywhere else on the Internet today? Did you even see it? Not to worry. I did.
A recent study (using those favorite study subjects, twins) "concluded that procrastination can indeed be genetic, and that it seems to have some genetic overlap with impulsivity." We've covered here at OC the impact of lack of impulse control on self-discipline. Yeah, it leads us to choose to chase after shiny stories about celebrities who haven't aged well instead of knocking off a thousand words a day. And that sounds a lot like procrastination.
The CNN article makes two interesting points. Impulsiveness gave the people of the past who possessed it an evolutionary advantage, presumably because those who could impulsively take off when they saw a wild animal coming for them had the best chance of getting away. Procrastination, the article says, "may be more of a modern phenomenon, since we now focus on long-term goals..."
We can focus on long-term goals because basic survival isn't as big an issue as it was centuries ago. Long-term goals are a luxury of a modern day life that doesn't require racing from wild beasts or rushing to get our share of food from a limited pool of the stuff. But most of us are descended from people who were impulsive, which is why they survived to reproduce. We don't need to run from wild beasts on a daily basis, so we use our impulsiveness to grab at Internet stories, home improvement shows, baking projects, shopping, and whatever else our hearts desire.
Writers, by the way, are modern people who particularly need to focus on long-term goals. But we're as likely as anyone else to have inherited impulsiveness from our ancestors. Check out your relatives to see if anyone else in your family has an impulsiveness/procrastination thing going on. If it looks as if it's in your genes, turn to The Procrastinator's Digest for help.
