Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
Decimate
In an early session of a workshop I’ve been leading, one participant came up with the word “decimate” to help him on his quest to declutter. He explained to the group that decimate comes from the Latin decimus, which literally meant to kill one out of every ten soldiers to punish the group. Wow. Each week, he would tell how he approached different drawers or areas of his house with the idea of decimating, or eliminating, a tenth of whatever was in that particular drawer. Let me tell you, men sometimes come up with different metaphors than I would.
However, I like this metaphor, and its fancy Latin roots, because it fits with my philosophy in number of ways:
- It creates a concrete goal. It isn’t enough to say, I want to winnow down my cardigans. What is winnow? Is it to get rid of 50 percent or 10 percent? Whatever your goal, it will be more effective if it’s specific and firm.
- It’s a great image. Most of my clients are visual, and the idea of killing off Roman soldiers will definitely paint a picture of the havoc you are planning to wreak on the contents of your junk drawer.
- It’s an achievable goal. In fact, it might be too easy, but that can be a good thing. You might whip through your whole house so fast, discarding a tenth of your stuff, that when you’re finished you might decide to do it again and eliminate another tenth.
- It’s short and sweet. You could “decimate” your T-shirt drawer while waiting for your husband to get out of the bathroom. You might knock out a desk drawer while you’re on hold with the insurance company (heck, you could probably decimate several drawers waiting to speak to a human). Why not decimate your socks while your hunting for that cute argyle pair?
I believe that sometimes when you change how you think about something, it can open up or get un-stuck, and sometimes all you need is a new metaphor. So try this out, see if it unleashes your inner warrior and then watch that clutter fall into line.