Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
Rules & Restraint : A New Year’s Message
My husband and son think I like rules too much, and it is true that I have a lot of rules. For example: You have to have a vegetable with dinner; Only one cup of coffee a day; You can’t have cookies for breakfast (that last one is for my husband). I think that, like children, grown-ups need structure and boundaries. For many of you, it is the things that you are strict about (receipts go in this drawer, work ID on that hook) that work the best for you. Sometimes it is our very good fortune, our opportunities and our options that make our lives so chaotic. I’ve often found that self-imposed rules can help focus and simplify my life.
Rules and restraint are both forms of discipline, and many of us are disciplined in one area of our lives (food or exercise for example) and not in others (mail management and shopping perhaps). The very richness of our society– the array of consumables at our disposal, our immediate access to so many different forms of media– make it too easy to skim along the surface of life. How easy it would be to shuttle between earning money and spending it, with a little TV and web-surfing thrown in for spice? What better time than the beginning of a new year, after the the excesses of the holiday season, to consider restraint.
Here are some of the rules I have made for myself, and some of the ways I’ve been practicing restraint in my own life. Obviously they aren’t right for everybody, but perhaps they might inspire you to think of some new rules you might invent for yourselves.
Amanda’s Rules:
- I have been trying not to buy any clothes that require dry-cleaning. Not only does this save money, but it eliminates chemicals from my home, and it limits the choices I have, which is actually helpful in NYC.
- I try to only check my email one time per night. If I am at home all day I will check it when I sit down to work and once before I finish. E-mail and the internet are huge time-eaters.
- I try to go to bed by 11. This is hard, since I am a Daily Show fan, but I notice how much better I feel.
- I only subscribe to the number of magazines I can actually read in a month.
- I don’t answer the phone during dinner, at Henry’s bedtime or when I am walking out the door.
- I only buy makeup in May and November (see Newsletter, issue 2, April `03)
- I resist impulse purchases. Sometimes I actually say to myself: Resist, resist.
- I pay off my credit card every month.
- If I buy something to replace something else, I throw out the old item the minute I get through the door with the new item. Sometimes it is hard to let go, but if you stick with that rule you won’t accumulate.
- Before his birthday, and again before Hanukkah and Christmas, my son and I go through his room and get rid of toys he has outgrown or doesn’t play with anymore. Even though the volume we get rid of may not equal what he receives, I feel the habit is one worth instilling.