The Bold | Room for Reset
Now that the agitating New Year’s Resolution season is in the rear-view mirror, it seems a good time to discuss fresh starts and new beginnings. The calendar doesn’t determine when a restart is warranted; we do.
Every reset needs room, and many cultures acknowledge this with house cleaning rituals to usher in the new year. In Scotland, Hogmany is preceded by “redding” the house, including settling debts, cleaning the home, and removing old ash from the hearth. In Japan, the Big Cleaning signals space for new things. In Iran, they call this process shaking the house. By cleaning the physical environment, people all over the world invite room for new objects, ideas, and experiences at the same time.
Accumulation is the work of little decisions, not massive action, as a big pile grows one tiny piece at a time. Often, we accumulate because new beginnings feel delightful and partings threaten sorrow.
To create the needed space, we have to dance with the sometimes uncomfortable reality that nothing is permanent. Sometimes we invite unloved and obviously dysfunctional things to depart. Sometimes we have to reach deeper and untether from what we cherished but no longer need.
The Whisper | The Three Categories of Clutter
I felt an urge to purge, and I pulled every book off the shelf in my library. Books had been piling up in unsightly and inconvenient heap,s and the books that had managed to maintain their position on the shelf were haphazard and disorganized. Shelf by shelf, I pulled them down, flipped through them, and made a decision about whether to place them back on the shelf or release them to a local used book store.
Every book had to earn its place back on the shelf.
As I sorted, I discovered that there were three obvious categories:
The Sentimental:
The paperback that I bought in that long-gone Woolworths near the University of Delaware while I waited for my Mom
The graduation gift my Aunt selected because the theme of radical thought in the American Revolution reminded her of me.
The biography of Josiah Chamberlain I bought at the Gettysburg gift shop on vacation.
Every one of these books is tied to a memory that transcends the value of what is printed on their pages. Some of these sentimental books stayed because they do make me happy. Others were donated because the sentiment wasn’t sufficient justification to keep them.
The Outdated:
The instruction book for a camera I no longer own.
The networking book written before the internet changed how we relate.
The Yosemite trail map book for a trip undertaken years ago that shows trails that have long since been reworked and changed.
Somehow, these hitched a ride a long time ago, outgrew their usefulness but hid under newer tomes and, because I was busy, persisted on the shelf. These were by far the easiest to release.
The What-If’s:
The gardening book that explains a complicated, if effective, method for cultivating plants outside in the hot sun. (I don’t like the hot sun)
The manual for collecting sea glass (I don’t live near the sea)
The instructions for tying advanced nautical knots (I am not an old sea dog)
Perhaps, at some point, I will become the sort of person who does square foot gardening. There will always be time to take up collecting. There might not be a reason, but there is time. And you never know when you’ll need a clove hitch. All of these books were released to serve someone who is currently engaged in these activities.
More than Just Books
The process of culling my book collection is urging me to cull my calendar, my to-do list, and my headspace of items that fall into these categories. The three categories of sentimental, outdated, and what-if clutter cause accumulations in appointments, commitments, tasks, habits, and even ideas.
Your Calendar
Sentimental commitments include appointments that reflect who you were, not who you are or who you want to become. Examples include activities that you no longer enjoy or benefit from but that it is hard to release. They may also be networking groups that don’t introduce new people or social commitments that feel obligatory but not satisfying.
Outdated commitments might include work that should have been delegated as you moved from an old role to your current one.
What-if commitments include classes to learn things you no longer want to make room to do.
Your Project List
Sentimental projects and tasks feel perfunctory and stale, but they have been a responsibility for a long time and feel difficult to abandon.
Outdated projects sometimes hover on the list when we have changed direction or perhaps solved a problem differently. Review your projects for relevance.
What-If projects feel more like shoulds than wants and often reflect aspirations that you inherited or accepted, not that you really want to achieve.
Your Habits
Sentimental habits have more to do with what you’ve always done and less to do with what will support where you want to be or to go.
Outdated habits might not reflect new research findings that contradict the assumptions behind the habit you formed in the past.
What-if habits only ever feel like obligations and seem to be the habits of a person you are not.
Your Ideology
Sentimental ideas may be beliefs we learned from loved ones or respected teachers but that, if we were to be honest and take the time for reflection, no longer match our world view.
Outdated ideas are, like outdated habits, appointments, and projects, ideas that are hiding in plain sight but that do not deserve your mental bandwith an longer.
What-if ideas spark internal criticism and unwarranted self recrimination. Be sure that the ideas you hold serve your journey and don’t just foster resentment and despair.
How to Let Go
A reason to let go makes the letting go easier. By focusing on how you will use the time, the space, and the freedom you create a much stronger will to purge that which no longer serves.
This is a process. Not everything that is in the way has to leave at once. By staying clear about what you want (and don’t want) to do, have, and be, you build your de-cluttering muscles.
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