Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
Loosening the Knots
I’ve been thinking about knots. I’ve had the opportunity to get the knots out of several necklaces in the last few weeks, both in my personal life (my daughter’s necklace, not mine, thank you very much) and professionally. I consider my ability to untangle necklaces to be one of my superpowers. I’m really good at it. Of course, part of why I’m good at it is that I think it is fun, like a puzzle. I have techniques, I know tricks (safety pins!) and I’m usually successful.
But I’ve also been thinking about muscles, how they knot up, and how, like necklaces, you don’t get the knots out right away; you have to loosen them up first, with a little stretching, a little heat. It might take time, but it can be done.
Clutter and mess can be like a truculent knot, and the first step is counterintuitive. Rather than contain the mess, you need to spread it out. In the same way that I like to lay a necklace down on the table to see what’s going on, and then loosen the knot bit by bit, in order to resolve a pile of clutter, you are going to have to loosen it up and look at it first.
Too often, people sweep their clutter into shopping bags or boxes and then squirrel it away. That’s fine if you’re trying to hide the clutter, but in order to resolve the clutter you’re going to have to lay it out and analyze it. Whether you’re dealing with a shopping bag of paper, a junk drawer of odds and ends or a bowl of miscellany, you have to start by taking everything out. As you consider each item you remove, even if you decide you are going to keep it, you loosen the knot that is that pile of clutter.
And as with a necklace, you’re looking for the logic. What goes together? What is garbage? Make categories: Rubber bands here, pencils here, and your new, improved drawer will begin to take shape. But that first step is going to be messy, because you are going to have decant all it all.
Here’s the silver lining: We can learn from our messes. My daughter taught me a great trick she found on the Internet to keep her necklaces from tangling (slide a drinking straw onto a thin chain and then fasten it), so she won’t need my superpower (sigh). As you untangle your cluttery areas, ask yourself how that stuff got into that pile, and think of a strategy you could use to avert it in the future.
And if you see me standing backwards on a curb, I haven’t lost my mind: I’m just stretching my calves while waiting for the light to change.