Marie Kondo, Evernote, and COVID-19

Housekeeping has always been difficult for me. My bedroom was a disaster when I was in my teen years. As an adult, I have spent a lifetime struggling with clutter. I have strong visual tune-out abilities and generally don't notice the clutter until someone walks through the front door and I see the place through their eyes. Then I want to do better. I really do. I know a clean and tidy environment makes me feel better. I want to be able to welcome guests without having to move clutter to give them a place to sit. I don’t want to be embarrassed by our house. I'm like someone who truly wants to lose weight and be physically fit and is fully intending to start a diet and an exercise program -- first thing tomorrow, after the holiday snacks are gone.

One thing I do rather than clean is plan how I'm going to clean. After more than 40 years of marriage and 35 years living at the same address, I have developed a fairly elaborate cleaning system. There's a daily "tidying" checklist, a weekly list, and a monthly list. In those lists I assign up to twenty minute chunks of cleaning time to each of forty cleaning areas, ranging from the smallest closet to the great outdoors (which gets five minutes per week). The least time is five minutes every other month to an attic area that gets almost no traffic. The most by far goes to the kitchen -- ten minutes every morning and evening plus a total of forty more minutes per week.

I have long believed that if I actually worked my system, it would work. Throwing time at something consistently has to make a difference over long periods of time, right? And I fully intend to work it -- as soon as I get this one other thing done. I have occasionally managed to persevere long enough to start to see results, but then fall off the rails again.

According to Goodreads, I finished reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo exactly four years ago today. It was life-changing. Or it would have been if I could have persevered in applying it. I tried. I really did. And things did get better here and there, but it's amazing how much stuff a roomy house accumulates when managed haphazardly for thirty-five years as three babies make their way to adulthood with all the time and energy and stuff kids require and all the improved technology begging to move in and the "items in" count consistently exceeding the "items out" count. It takes serious time to sort through it all. It is an overwhelming project and always easier to put off until later, after I do this quick and easy thing that has nothing to do with cleaning.

Meanwhile, I'm not sure when I started using Evernote, but I have come to value it more and more. Having seen that the latest version doesn't support how I use it, I may be looking for something new when the legacy version quits working, but over the years I have gradually moved my housecleaning system into Evernote as to-do items. The reality is that I could care less in this moment with its many opportunities that there's dust under the furniture, but Evernote tells me I need to spend twenty minutes at a "monthly" level of cleaning in the living room this week and a survey of the room says the dust bunnies threatening to take over the place are probably the place to start. My need to check off that item on my to-do list compels me to set my timer, grab the Swiffer, and get to work. Or start sorting through a stack of papers, or cleaning out a drawer or washing windows. Just until my timer goes off, at which point I will move on to the next cleaning space. Unless I'm hopelessly behind and get distracted by something more fun or urgent or compelling. Then my system comes crashing down and I start avoiding Evernote.

That's where COVID-19 comes in. The energy a new year brings inspired me for the first couple of months of 2020 and then the pandemic came along and simplified my schedule. A lot. Being retired, by the time all the restrictions and closings kicked in, about all I had left was housework and gardening. So I worked my system. I started thanking stuff I no longer need and finding a new place for it. One by one. Room by room. Item by item. Since it's my system and my rules, I can modify the rules whenever I want. When one room doesn't have enough serious clutter left to justify the time committed to it, I drag in a box of clutter from another area to sort through. My system, my rules, my prerogative to tweak the rules.

I was amazed in June to discover I had completed every week's cleaning list for the first six months of 2020. This is not amazing at an objective level. Like I said, I'm retired. The cleaning lists require around twelve hours per week. That's not exactly a full-time job. And yet, this was the first time I had ever come close to persevering for six months. My previous record might have been six weeks. Something had shifted. I learned how to catch up when I fell behind. I embraced every inch of my compulsive tendencies to stick to the plan. I prayed every morning for energy and perseverance. And it started working!

I love this article by Thomas Oopong, which, among other things, says: 

Small improvements add up to massive differences. Compounding works in other areas besides money.

In July, our daughter and son-in-law and three children moved into a small rental house near us, requiring them to put much of their stuff in storage. One item that wasn't going to fit into their cramped living quarters was their Rock Band set-up. I said, "Coincidentally, I think there's enough space for your Wii in a small room I have been cleaning out." Now I have Rock Band! This is much better than the junk that room held before! What a nice pay-off!

In December, our other daughter and son-in-law were going to be in the area for the holidays, but were uncomfortable with the idea of family togetherness in our house with the pandemic still raging strong. I said, "You know, I think our two-car garage that up to now has barely had room for one vehicle has had enough junk removed that, with some effort, it could be cleaned up and split in half for a family gathering with adequate social distancing." The ping pong table that has been folded up in the cluttered basement for years was moved into the garage simply as a table large enough to provide plenty of separation for those participating, with the bonus feature of a net running across it to separate the two sides. On a whim, I also provided paddles and balls in case a game broke out. And it did! We had a wonderful gathering with plenty of space and some intense ping pong between the two social circles. It took just a few hours the week of Christmas to prepare, not a beautiful gathering place, but an acceptable area! Well, that in addition to ten minutes per week and twenty extra minutes per month for twelve months plus a couple of extra projects my husband helped me with. One month we moved a set of metal shelves that had been holding junk for years to another part of the house where they would get better use. Another month, after contributing to a family yard sale, we turned an old wooden cabinet that was mostly empty into kindling and rearranged the other storage. It took a year of dutifully checking off "garage" on my weekly and monthly to-do lists to prepare for that Christmas gathering. Not with the goal of the gathering, but just because it was standing between me and completing that week's cleaning list. Often I spent the ten minutes simply sweeping out the leaves that insist on migrating into the garage, slowly expanding the "clean space" over time. I had no goal nearly so lofty as creating a gathering space for our family Christmas. My highest aspiration was to get another vehicle inside when snow or freezing rain was in the forecast.

Small improvements. Incremental change. Ten minutes a week plus twenty extra minutes a month for twelve months turned a garage one could hardly walk through into 480 square foot of potential. I couldn't have asked for a better pay-off. In fact, it was so nice and roomy, we may start having more family gatherings out there.

Thank you, Marie Kondo, and others who write about decluttering for encouraging me to not just organize the clutter, but to evaluate each item for enduring value and move much of it out. Thank you, developers of Evernote for giving me a place to organize my tasks and do them for no other reason than to get them off my to-do list. (And PLEASE make the tags in the new version work like they used to!) Thank you, Thomas Oppong and others, for encouraging me to seek large improvements through many small steps over a long period of time. I am now fully convinced of the effectiveness of that approach.