Tidiness, or the lack of it, creates all sorts of issues for people. What is the appropriate range for tidiness in a home? How quickly should untidiness be responded to? How does a guest respect the tidiness boundaries of a host? Does a boss have a say over an employee’s tidiness? Does an employee have a say over a boss’s tidiness?
As I pile up more years of working with clients, I’ve come to believe that tidiness is not a superficial issue about good housekeeping, but an external expression of a variety of important, heartfelt internal processes. The degree of one’s tidiness can directly relate to their energy, health, emotional clarity, cultural values, priorities, upbringing, scarcity, fear, busyness, compulsiveness, perfectionism, and sense of home.
Cultures vary in their perception of what constitutes untidiness and clutter. When I moved to Seattle, I rented a room for six months in the home of a family from China. Each room was perfectly neat at all times. Furnishings were spare and carefully placed. Two family members, however, aspired to be as American as possible. These two people had acquired a great many more items than the others, and their rooms were much more cluttered.
Of course, tidiness is not entirely a function of the number of items in a room. I’ve seen crowded rooms that were exquisitely organized, and stark rooms that felt filthy because crumbs and crusted dishes littered all the surfaces. Nevertheless, when the volume of items overwhelms the space in which they are kept, a certain critical point gets passed, and chaos results.
Is there an American standard of tidiness? I’m amused by a straw poll I’ve been taking for years. In nearly every neighborhood, there is one house in perfect order. Its paint is fresh; vehicles are lined up or put away; the grass is regularly mowed; flower beds are primly ordered. Also in nearly every neighborhood, there is at least one house in disarray. The grass is shaggy; trash cans lie on their sides; and all sorts of flotsam and jetsam litter the property.
I’ve also noticed that, with rare exceptions, people will apologize for the state of their homes, no matter how neat their homes actually are. I’ve concluded that, as a rule, we believe we should be tidier than we are, that most ordinary Americans believe they are falling short in their neatness duties.
Tidiness has advantages. We can find things. For the amount of time it takes to maintain tidiness, we are paid back in time that isn’t needed to hunt for things.
The Asian art of feng shui is all about arranging space to enhance health and ease. As I’ve applied these principles, I’ve discovered that I do increase the energy of a room when it is tidy and well arranged.
We each fall somewhere on a continuum between a home that is dangerously cluttered and one that is surgically sterile. If you live alone, a wide swath on the continuum is acceptable. A boundary is crossed only if your health or comfortable living is threatened, or if your tidiness (or lack of it) is actually a defense against some inner fear.
For example, if you are so busy tidying and cleaning that you miss out on living a rich, varied life, you’ve violated your own boundary. Such rampant tidying could be an effort to create a feeling of control in a chaotic world—an understandable reaction, perhaps, but costly in terms of quality of life.
At the other end of the scale, severe clutter can crowd people out. Some folks might avoid a house that could double as a news archive, that offers no clean place to sit, or that reeks with unpleasant odors.
The integrity of your home life becomes compromised when your issues with cleaning interfere with your ability to keep your environment the way you’d really like it. If something inside you is violating the way you’d like to live, do you know what is behind this interference? Working with the internal issue in a therapeutic way, or with a professional clutter coach, can help.
The tidiness issue heats up considerably when two people live together. You’ve heard of the law of gravity, and you know instinctively of the law of the left sock (the sock that’s abandoned when its mate escapes through the dryer vent and hops merrily to Sock Camp).
Now let me introduce you to a nearly inviolable law I’ve discovered, the Law of Heterotidiality. This law ordains that a very tidy person always marries one who tends to clutter. Survival of the species is thus promoted by keeping a couple’s home balanced between the extremes of drowning in debris and ringing with cries of, “Oh no, I threw that out and now I need it!”
Li, who is energized by tidiness and loves order, can be perpetually irritated by Fan, who leaves tools where they were last used. Fan’s perspective is that being a good parent, doing a good job, or simply living a full life matters more than a few tumbling piles. Li needs for things to be tidy in order to have energy for the kids or for Fan, and thus is thwarted by clutter. Fan sees Li’s standard of neatness as arbitrary and feels confined by it.
I’ve had a fair sprinkling of clients who were neglected as children, not by an absent or drinking mom, but by one who was driven to keep things tidy. These mothers were so devoted to keeping their households showroom perfect that they didn’t see their children’s lonely eyes. Taught by painful experience that the house was more important than they were, these kids couldn’t find their own place in either the house or their mother’s heart.
Not surprisingly, these adult children of compulsive tidiers have difficulty keeping their own homes in order. Another consequence is that many of them live alone and feel doomed to be alone in the world. Some essential connections got missed while mom was polishing the furniture.
So what are appropriate boundaries around tidiness?
First, respect the needs of each member of the household regarding their own possessions and their own private space. If Shanna keeps her tools in perfect order, put them back when you borrow them. If Harold feels violated when you move things on his desk, leave his desk alone.
Second, if at all possible, create an inviolable space for each member of the household—a room, a closet, an alcove that can be screened, a corner where each person can be cluttered or tidy to their heart’s content. Keep out of their spaces and leave their things alone. Close the door or pull a curtain if company is coming.
Third, when you are a guest in someone’s home, model your tidiness parameters according to what you see your host doing. If they neaten the room at the end of the day, don’t leave your socks in the living room. If they carry plates to the sink, do the same.
If you are tidier than your host, create the order you need in your own area, and stop there. Always ask permission before straightening or cleaning a host’s home. It is a gross boundary violation, no matter what your motive, to clean out someone else’s closet or organize their drawers—unless of course you have first gotten their express and enthusiastic permission.
At work, negotiate tidiness boundaries that promote your own productivity. If your boss insists on a neat desk, but a barren work surface shuts you out of the creative part of your brain, tell your boss why you need to work differently. If you need neatness to have a clear head, explain why dumping out a drawer on your desk will set you back for a couple of hours. (Obviously, a monstrously untidy place of business will also turn away clients. On the other hand, stalking a client with a dust mop sends a forbidding message.)
An appropriate tidiness boundary is one that protects the integrity of the environment and the integrity of the people who use it. Tidiness boundaries also exclude any extreme that violates the space of others, interferes with anyone’s quality of life, threatens anyone’s health, or gets in the way of intimacy.
My sister serves as a good model here. Her house is always comfortable. It’s easy to find room to play a game, have a conversation, or share a meal. There are places to sit and room to move, and the house is clean enough to feel healthy. Yet when someone visits, she sits down and attends to them. She doesn’t track them with a vacuum cleaner or wait till she’s completed twenty chores before she talks to them. Her whole home is designed and maintained according to two priorities: living comfortably and having space to connect.