Why Messy Spaces Make an Anxious Mind
Getting organized is downright therapeutic
“Go clean your room,” our parents said, and we did so grudgingly, if at all. Now as adults, when Jordan Peterson and Marie Kondo tell us to go clean our rooms, some of us take to it with the fervor of a religious convert.
Indeed, Peterson and Kondo both make cleaning up seem like a spiritual practice. Peterson portrays “sorting out” your room in terms of cosmic and heroic myth, as well as psychotherapy. And Kondo’s “tidying up” philosophy is deeply influenced by the Shinto religion.
As many of their fans can attest, sorting out and tidying up our messy spaces can be downright therapeutic, even spiritually healing. That is because messes are not just aesthetically unpleasant, but also angst-generating. They say a cluttered space is a sign of a cluttered mind. It can also be a sign of an anxious, even tormented soul.
Messes are, by their nature, confusing. If your stuff (in your home, office, computer, or “cloud”) confuses you, it can stress you out and repel you. That can lead to procrastination, because you find yourself avoiding the materials you need to work with. And that procrastination leads to even more stress.
As David Allen wrote, “Being organized simply means that where something is matches what it means to you.”
If your clean clothes are located in the space that means “clean clothes” to you (your dresser and closet) and your dirty clothes are located in the space that means “dirty clothes” to you (your laundry basket), it makes it easy both to get dressed and to do laundry. But if your clean and dirty clothes are intermingled on the floor, the pile would confuse and repel you, making you more susceptible to procrastinating on both tasks.
The same principle applies to your workflow management system. As David Allen counsels, and as I explained in my last essay, your inboxes should mean “items to clarify” and should contain notes like “Mom’s birthday is coming up.” Your to-do lists should mean “clarified next actions to perform” and should contain doable reminders like “Call Mom’s favorite restaurant to make a reservation for her birthday.”
But a lot of people insert what should be inbox items into their to-do lists, which sets themselves up for frustration down the road.
If you’re in “doing mode” and you’re also too mentally tired to clarify things, you might want to pick up a to-do list rather than your inbox. But if on that list you see a bunch of not-yet-clarified items like “Mom’s birthday is coming up,” you will be stymied, because you can’t “do” that. And if you know beforehand that your to-do list is a mishmash of manifold meanings, you might not even look it over in the first place. And that means procrastinating on your self-assigned tasks.
Mixed-meaning lists are confusing and therefore repellant. As David Allen wrote, “You are either attracted or repelled by your lists and everything on them. There is no neutral territory.”
As they say, “A place for everything and everything in its place.” All of your territories should be, in a sense, sacred territories dedicated exclusively to the meaning and purpose to which you assign them. Keep them sacred by prohibiting impurities and purging any impurities that creep in. That will make your spaces useful and attractive, instead of frustrating and repellant.
As Peterson might say, a messy space is an intrusion of chaos into your realm of habitable order, like the hostile wilderness creeping back into a household fallen into neglect and disrepair. The more you let the wilds into your life, the more you will feel weak and vulnerable.
But if you domesticate your physical and digital territories, making them friendly domains, you will feel well-equipped, strong, and secure.
Instead of feeling lost in the woods, you will feel safe at home.
