Unfinished Business

Photo by Samet Kurtkus on Unsplash

I think one of the reasons why I love reading books about decluttering, organising and tidying is because I’m a very messy person. Left to my own devises, I’ll just put things down wherever I happen to be at the time with a promise to come back and deal with them “later”.

Of course “later” is a bog of eternal stench from which nothing emerges in good time or in good condition. “Later” is a non-time. A time that simultaneously exists and does not exist, in which nothing has actually happened, but theoretically will happen “soon” (whenever that is), so it’s in a state of flux. Partway between nothing and something – but still, in point of fact, nothing.

Whatever I actually want for myself and my surroundings – whatever drive I have to see orderliness and purposefulness in my world – there seem to be two things that I believe on a cellular level:

1. I’m too tired/busy/distracted to deal with this right now
2. If I put away, I’ll forget to deal with it, but if I leave it where I can see it I’ll surely get to it “soon”.

I drove my poor mother to distraction when I was in high school and university. I was always in the middle of so many things – and, of course, because I was in the middle of them, I couldn’t put them away. They had to stay close at hand so I could easily see them and remember to pick up where I left off.

I thought I was being quite practical. Why put something away when you’re still working on it? Why increase the likelihood that you’d never remember where you got up to if it’s “out of sight and out of mind”?

She wanted to live in a house that seemed tidy, clean and organised. I thought she was an impractical neat freak. I recently stumbled across some photos I took of the living room back when I was a uni student, and I finally understood how much pain I gave her back then. The place looked like every piece of paper I owned was strewn in a careless fashion over every given surface.

There is nothing worse than being forced to live in a space that is beyond your clutter threshold. The teenage/twenty-something me did that to my mother for years.

What I realise now, that I was too full of my own sense of self importance and manifest destiny to realise at the time, is that the mess was both an expression and cause of my own anxiety.

It was an expression of anxiety because I honestly believed I would forget or lose anything that wasn’t directly in front of my face, and I felt overwhelmed by the pressures that were being put on me at the time. I know now that my brain is actually a piece of mouldy Swiss cheese and I couldn’t really keep on top of everything I was asking of myself and everything other people were asking of me (1). Keeping everything I thought I might need in sight was a way to feel some control. I didn’t need to remember this thing, because I could see it. Whatever I couldn’t see was Schrödinger’s cat. Maybe it existed, maybe it didn’t. Maybe I would only remember it existed a week after the due date.

It was also a source of anxiety because I was in the middle of too many things (2). I never had the time or headspace to finish anything (3), so it stayed “out where I could see it” so I’d get back to it. Along with everything else. For a very long time. Looking back on it now, I realise I was surrounding myself with unfinished business.

Everywhere I looked, I saw a half-finished job (4). Many half-finished jobs. Too many half-finished jobs. The books and articles I hadn’t finished reading, the clothes I was going to fold, the dishes I needed to rinse off, the bed I hadn’t made, the hobbies I had started but not progressed, the instruments I should have practiced, the scripts I was supposed to rehearse… every single surface was covered with things I needed to do. Things that I had forgotten (or neglected).

But the more the unfinished jobs piled up (and I could see them piling up – they were in very visible piles all around me) the more I felt too overwhelmed to do anything about them. By keeping all of the unfinished business where I could see it, I was keeping my own failures in view at all times.

Most of the time, I felt impotent. Directionless. When you are surrounded by so many things that require your attention, how do you chose which one to do right now?

And I did what many kids in their teens and twenties (and beyond) do when they feel overwhelmed and unable to deal with their lives right now – I retreated into the things that brought me joy and asked nothing of me. Science fiction, comics, books… I gave myself something else to throw all of my energy (and most of my money) into, so I could avoid dealing with the things that most needed my attention.

The result? I was still surrounded by unfinished business. But now I was also surrounded with all of the things I had bought to distract me from the unfinished business.

Clutter and mess.

I’ve learned, over the years, that making the bed, doing the dishes, folding the clothes and the linen and putting them neatly into the cupboards… these things give me the sense that I’ve done something. At least one job is finished – look, I can see the neatly folded clothes! It’s low hanging fruit that has a big visual impact. Taking 10 minutes to put away things I don’t need right this minute makes me feel less surrounded by things I need to deal with. Maybe it’s a con – but it’s a useful con. It’s getting something done, which is a huge improvement on nothing.

Sure, I’m still surrounded by unfinished business in every single aspect of my life. But some of the jobs I needed to do today have been done, dammit! And most of what I’m drowning under isn’t visible in my home. I can come home to a space that’s actually somewhat calming.

The decluttering and tidying books haven’t cured me. I’m still a mess (in soooo many senses of the word). But every time I read one, I get a little bit of motivation and mojo to get something done. To chip away at the piles. I see less evidence of my unfished business. I feel less overwhelmed by the things I should have done.

They’ve also helped me come to realise that there’s no such thing as “finished once and for all”, which was a big issue for me. If I couldn’t get it all done now, then I’d wait until some magical time in the future when the stars aligned and I could do it all in one fell swoop. If I put all that energy into a big push to get on top of things, and they all got out of hand again, then what was the point of even trying?

But thanks to some of the books about tidying I’ve been reading (I really feel they are the philosophy books of our age), I’ve come to realise there is great value in “little and often”, and that some jobs will need to be done over and over and over again – and thank goodness (as Zen Master Raven would say). Getting stuff done, taking care of stuff and moving stuff from here to there is the stuff of life. So I don’t need to do Everything Once and for All. I just need to do something now.

These things I know: things will get out of hand and start to pile up, and I will do one little job right now and that will make a difference.

(1) I still can’t.

(2) I still am.

(3) I still don’t.

(4) I… still do.