Burn it all down and sue for a bigger house
Putting tools away is a piece of cake when there's plenty of space leftover in the toolbox. Just chuck 'em in there and get on with your day. But stuff likes to expand, so the toolbox tends to be full to overflowing, so the tools don't get put away, and now there are tools all over the house, and now you spend 15 minutes muttering under your breath searching for your hammer. Ain't nobody got time for that. Clearly, you need to clear things out of your toolbox. Clearing things out of your toolbox is easy when there's plenty of time leftover in your day. But commitments like to expand, so the day tends to be full to overflowing, so the toolbox doesn't get cleared, etc.
You've got resources like time, money, space, and cognitive load. Stuff likes to expand and use it all up. Things are going to spill over. That's how life works. Things in general tend to be kind of a frustrating mess with not enough room to move around in. And everything's connected! When one buffer runs out, stuff overflows into other buffers. The dishes aren't done, not through any fault of the dishes, but because there's a pile of tools in the dish rack for some reason. The bike lane is jammed with double parked cars. There's no time for project B at work because project A didn't hit its ambitious deadline.
That's why I'm a little obsessed with slack. You need leftover space so that things can spill and the system keeps working. The system needs to keep working so I can do all the things that make life worth living, instead of just spinning my wheels flexing overflowing buffers, getting frustrated putting off activities because they depend on moving clutter out of the way which depends on having enough energy which I spent working a full time job and raising a kid. It's hard to get ahead. It's hard to get started, creating slack. There's a bootstrapping problem, as in, it takes slack in order to have the time, energy, and creativity to create slack in the first place.
So I've got my eye on slack, and this way of thinking has worked quite well actually. Over the past year or so, my apartment became a much more useful tool. Many things that were annoying got much faster. I can get the whole place picked up in, like, half an hour because I have plenty more storage than stuff. Many things that were nice before are even nicer. Now there's always space to put my ice cream down on the end table beside the couch. The couch used to be a futon, but I attacked it with power tools and turned it into a deep couch which is now large enough to let two relaxing adults sprawl out a little bit.
I like to put my buffers in the kitchen. Trash, recycling, cardboard boxes, giveaway box, my still-packed bags from my latest trip, whatever comes up, I pile it in the kitchen. Then I can see in a glance how my slack looks. If slack is running out, the number one rule of chores is, listen to music. It makes me really happy to look in my kitchen and see that nothing is overflowing.
To create slack, you can do two things. You can increase the size of the container, and you can decrease the amount of stuff. You HAVE to decrease the amount of stuff, otherwise it just piles up forever, even if you keep increasing the size of the container.
But things hate leaving my apartment. So I had to get pretty sophisticated about it. How many ratty old t-shirts do I need? Like, one. But there are so many memories attached to each one! So I photograph old t-shirts and THEN throw them out. Digital memories take up no space. Sometimes things need a proper burial, perhaps by bonfire, otherwise I can't bear to get rid of them. Sometimes things are useful but unused. I take them to the thrift store if they're expensive, I throw them away and remind myself I can always buy more if they aren't. This method requires slack in my income obviously. But it also requires judgement calls and a sense of perspective. It's just a pack of pens. Who cares. Chuck it.
THE move I want to make right now is moving to a 32 hour, 4 day work week. I need one weekday of slack. I think one thing I'll see is a lot more art, music, and writing coming out of my social media accounts, which is just to say, I'll have plenty of time to dedicate to the things that are important to me. That's a sign I'm happy and fulfilled.
You've got resources like time, money, space, and cognitive load. Stuff likes to expand and use it all up. Things are going to spill over. That's how life works. Things in general tend to be kind of a frustrating mess with not enough room to move around in. And everything's connected! When one buffer runs out, stuff overflows into other buffers. The dishes aren't done, not through any fault of the dishes, but because there's a pile of tools in the dish rack for some reason. The bike lane is jammed with double parked cars. There's no time for project B at work because project A didn't hit its ambitious deadline.
That's why I'm a little obsessed with slack. You need leftover space so that things can spill and the system keeps working. The system needs to keep working so I can do all the things that make life worth living, instead of just spinning my wheels flexing overflowing buffers, getting frustrated putting off activities because they depend on moving clutter out of the way which depends on having enough energy which I spent working a full time job and raising a kid. It's hard to get ahead. It's hard to get started, creating slack. There's a bootstrapping problem, as in, it takes slack in order to have the time, energy, and creativity to create slack in the first place.
So I've got my eye on slack, and this way of thinking has worked quite well actually. Over the past year or so, my apartment became a much more useful tool. Many things that were annoying got much faster. I can get the whole place picked up in, like, half an hour because I have plenty more storage than stuff. Many things that were nice before are even nicer. Now there's always space to put my ice cream down on the end table beside the couch. The couch used to be a futon, but I attacked it with power tools and turned it into a deep couch which is now large enough to let two relaxing adults sprawl out a little bit.
I like to put my buffers in the kitchen. Trash, recycling, cardboard boxes, giveaway box, my still-packed bags from my latest trip, whatever comes up, I pile it in the kitchen. Then I can see in a glance how my slack looks. If slack is running out, the number one rule of chores is, listen to music. It makes me really happy to look in my kitchen and see that nothing is overflowing.
To create slack, you can do two things. You can increase the size of the container, and you can decrease the amount of stuff. You HAVE to decrease the amount of stuff, otherwise it just piles up forever, even if you keep increasing the size of the container.
But things hate leaving my apartment. So I had to get pretty sophisticated about it. How many ratty old t-shirts do I need? Like, one. But there are so many memories attached to each one! So I photograph old t-shirts and THEN throw them out. Digital memories take up no space. Sometimes things need a proper burial, perhaps by bonfire, otherwise I can't bear to get rid of them. Sometimes things are useful but unused. I take them to the thrift store if they're expensive, I throw them away and remind myself I can always buy more if they aren't. This method requires slack in my income obviously. But it also requires judgement calls and a sense of perspective. It's just a pack of pens. Who cares. Chuck it.
THE move I want to make right now is moving to a 32 hour, 4 day work week. I need one weekday of slack. I think one thing I'll see is a lot more art, music, and writing coming out of my social media accounts, which is just to say, I'll have plenty of time to dedicate to the things that are important to me. That's a sign I'm happy and fulfilled.
Comments
Post a Comment