Well, I guess it’s as inevitable in more plebeian matters as it seems to be on a universal scale. Still, whenever a big home project ends, I look at my office and…well, it is supposed to be hurricane season isn’t it?
As ever, after the flurry of work is finished, suddenly you take a look at your desk and realize that you are not, in fact, looking at the desk. Oh it’s in there, somewhere buried in the notes and the headphones and the receipts and that cookie that you were going to eat a week ago, but the desk itself is completely invisible. Yes, even the bits that aren’t supposed to be covered with a giant pad.
The process of cleaning can vary depending on mood and approach. After I decided to stop telling myself that I hated it, brought it onto the schedule and just commited that time for it and not a second more, it became much more enjoyable.
There’s a reason the clutter accumulates, you’re focused, concentrated completely on the task at hand or getting distracted by things which are much more entertaining and provide a lot more dopamine than clearing out your desk. So that whole “Put it away, don’t put it down” mantra goes completely out of the window, as if you’ve never heard it. But finishing something gives that magnificent dose of clarity and a vacuum of free time that you can fill whatever you want. There’s where you put the time in for clearing out the desk.
Done this way, it suddenly becomes part of the completion, just a final, not that important accomplishment on what you have just finished doing. The brain is thus tricked into wanting to do it and keep the high of the accomplishment going. A simple task for a simple checkmark. Then you sit on a freshly clean office with an expanse of space brimming with possibilities to fill it again.
And if you didn’t finish it in your allotted time, that’s also okay, because it’s not that important of a task and what you wanted to accomplish is already done. Whatever decluttering you have done is just a cherry atop a sundae of positivity. Time to tackle on the next project…maybe after reading a book or doing some gaming or something.
People enjoy sharing their beliefs about a simple, clean environment precluding a happy, stress-free life. But they also seem to miss quite an important bit in not sharing that the cleaning itself is a part of maintaining that. After all, if you’re not a screen-fiend, what better way to keep the positivity and the good energy flowing than a sequence of small, easy, repetitive tasks which give you immediate results and reflect tangible accomplishments?
I know that’s how I felt when I was done with mine. Something else to do will come up are sure. And when I get to it, I wonder about the absolute state of my desk when it’s all over.
