The Cleaner

I am not an orderly person. One of the my favorite lines is what Einstein said when someone commented on how messy his office was. "They should see what it looks like in here." he said, pointing to his head.

So speaking as a disorderly person (non-orderly? or "Speaking not as an orderly person..."?), I think I can opine authoritatively on what constitutes a mess. There are two complementary principles in play. A mess is when you have the too many different things in one place, and when you have one kind of thing in too many different places.

A good example of the former is my keyboard drawer. Among other things, it contains eye drops (3 bottles), flash drives (2) a battery, a glasses case with no glasses inside, a pack of gum, post-it notes, two bike lock keys, an earring (not mine), the keys to the biology lab in my former school building and to my ski rack, cards from supermarkets and other stores, including gift cards, frequent traveler programs, health care providers, health clubs, governmental entities and banks, a watch, two receipts, a DVD-R with figure skating recorded on it, a foil ball containning 3 ibuprofen, American and Canadian pennies, and of course, a keyboard, mouse and mouse pad. This variety makes it very hard to find anything aside from the biggest items, like the eyedrops, watch, and, of course, the keyboard.

One obvious example of the latter is trash. Trash belongs in the trash recepticle, and all kinds of problems ensue when trash is in places other than those recepticles, which it almost always is. The trick is, what is trash? Which leads me to my other example- keepsakes. If you have keepsakes in multiple locations, you are guaranteed to have a mess. One of the best pieces of cleaning advice I ever ignored was, "If you're saving something because it might come in handy someday, throw it out." Keepsakes are the emotional version of things that might come in handy someday. It's nice to have some, but too many can make it hard to find the things that actually are handy.