“You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” —Steve Jobs
Epistemic status: still cleaning up my thinking, but reflecting some of the messiness here
last updated: May 1st, 2024
We like to tout that "writing is thinking," but I adore how decluttering is no less than a process of bespoke, applied reasoning.
When I meet people sharing tales of their adventurous lives—bicoastal existences, important work projects, global travels—I find myself wondering about the mundane, janitorial reality underneath.
Tell me about the unspoken scaffolding of your life.
How do you think about the areas where you have autonomy? What logic connects the disparate flows of your days, allowing you to fully show up for the commitments and people you care about?
How do you Dobby your world?
I've come to see that the feeling of "overwhelm" many describe isn't merely about having too many tasks. When someone says their life is overwhelming, instead of addressing the cascade of to-do items with local bandaids, I take a step back and recruit higher order thinking—what I now call decluttering your life.
When facing the mountain that is their life, a person often feels life is happening to them. They've become an object acted upon by forces, rather than a subject with agency.
Thus begins the musical score of decluttering: the great audit of reasoning towards emotional alignment.
There's talk-therapy, and then there's something old fashioned that a parent could amusingly relate to: clean your room.
But let's make it more modern: the next time you think you need a coach, or an EA, consider hiring a very perceptive organizer from TaskRabbit (you'll find them for $50-60/hr).
Identify and work through reducing the inner-and-outer friction in your daily processes/routines, the big rocks in your life, as well as the nooks and crannies of your worlds, pebbles that take on enormous weight.
Start somewhere, anywhere, and keep going layer-by-layer.
My personal favorite is my closet, the many identities, commitments, and states that are embodied in it.
Decluttering is best done with a high degree of openness, a blameless kindness, a shamelessness, and intensely loving attention because of the depth of its vulnerability.