Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter

Avoiding the Aviodable

Chaos leads to more chaos.

My mother used to constantly tell me that being careful and methodical saved time in the end. I spent years trying to prove her wrong. But she was right (sigh). Slowing down, doing things right the first time—reading all the ingredients before you start cooking, reading all of your mail and email, covering all the furniture before you start to paint, checking that you have all the pieces before you start building your Ikea furniture, routinely filing (or purging) all the paper on the desk so you don’t end up with piles—these things all seem boring and mundane, and yet they are smart investments of your time.

The older I get the more I see order as freeing and chaos as prison. Having my ducks in a row frees me of so much anxiety, I don’t have to carry my phone when I’m walking through the botanical gardens with my family (I did that today! Yay!) because I know there’s nothing hanging over me. I know I sound like an old hippie (and maybe I am), but I like to be where I am. When I’m bill paying, I bill-pay; when I’m filing, I file; and in those wonderful moments when I’m out in nature with my family, I darn well want to just be out in nature, not waiting for an important call about some catastrophe of my own making.

And here’s one last plug for keeping on top of your sh*t: it’s empowering. I’m a feminist. I’m nobody’s victim. When people don’t keep on top of their sh*t, it gets more complicated and more tangled and they end up feeling like the world is out to get them—they feel like victims. That is an awful way to feel, and it isn’t true. It’s a result, or, as I’d tell my kids, a consequence of having been half-assed in the first place.

Of course, sometimes stupid things happen that aren’t your fault at all. And you’ll have to deal with it. But life is too short to waste one more blessed moment cleaning up avoidable messes.