The Essential Importance of Putting Things Away
Putting Things Away is an essential daily practice. As sacred and intentional as getting on your meditation cushion; as practical and necessary as brushing your teeth, or taking your vitamins. If it doesn’t happen, pretty quickly, the downstream effects can be substantial.
We quietly, evenly secretly-subconsciously know, that if we aren’t budgeting the time & energy it takes to *actually* put things away, we will forever be drowning in perpetual chaos.
I say it ‘cuz I know it, have lived it, and continue to experience it occasionally— even after so many years of very deep practice. As an artist, mama, DIY-householder, and “stuff-medium”… my material realm is robust and layered, and constantly shifting, staging, purging, reorganizing. At times it overwhelms me, and like anyone sensible, I shut it behind a closed door and put on some Netflix. I can’t “do” stuff all the time— even though it is very much what I feel like I do (and I DO!).
I have sat with and observed the putting/not putting-away phenomenon ever since I attended a 2009 retreat that really highlighted the virtue of something called “conscious precision.” By the organizers estimation (their sensibilities here were very Swiss/German, very precise, very measured), conscious precision is a holy way of treating our material world, by giving everything a place, and returning it there as soon as it was out of use. So you don’t lose 45min looking for your keys every time you misplace them. So you don’t continually aggravate your householding comrades with your unwashed dishes. From the organizers’ perspective, the static that comes from misplaced material things has a significant downstream toll on our overall experience of health and the countenance we offer to the world. It’s a girlscout-y framework that asks us to be aware of what we are using, how much, and how carefully. It reminds us that material stuff is costly (thinking about the whole life cycle) and when we honor it’s value in our lives by treating the thing with the respect and reverence it deserves, we honor the great effort that was made to get it to us in the first place. We don’t so casually discard or buy new ones (because we can’t find the old ones). We say NO to unneeded/wanted schwag! We are closer to taking care of the things that take care of us. We are moving towards a stuff-to-person ratio that is appropriate, civilized and manageable.
In the LIFE CYCLE of a fully-functional environment, “Putting Away” is part of refreshing/renewing the space. It is COMPLETING the activities you’ve engaged in. It makes room for whatever is next, for the possibilities-to-come. That so-called “universal” Law-of-Attraction, undoubtably responds to these realms.
We can all probably relate to the various consequences of NOT putting things away. Getting back from being on the road/ art installation projects, are my personal pitfalls. I have lost many months of productivity and pieces of my soul from delaying on that hideous pile in the studio, patio or garage. I’ve hogged up our kitchen counter with various oversized soup or juice-making devices. Deactivated my sense of healthful propriety in failing to take out the compost or trash or recycling… seeing how it stacks up, overflows, gathers yet more grime and procrastination, becoming evermore difficult to address, no matter how simply it might be remedied…
As much as we may wish to bibity-bopidy-boo ourselves to a clean/functional home— Maybe we rely on someone’s mom to pick up the slack and drive the ship— Maaaybe it’s the House Elves?!— And maybe we do pay someone to come in and clean, maybe deeply, maybe in a maintenance way—
…But it doesn’t take the place of YOU putting YOUR things away.
Marie Kondo says it’s an integral part of her daily program, the very first thing she does upon getting home. Besides being perfectly minimalist (hey— some of us just aren’t!)… Putting Away Time *has* to be designed into each major transition point throughout the day. Think of it as a literal item that goes on your work-plan/budget/calendar. As part of every meeting, every meal, every craft exploration, grocery trip, playdate, and Sunday morning. Five minutes. Two minutes. Sixty seconds. Any measure of tidying will help take the edge off!
“Stuff” has the funny properties of multiplying and playing tricks when we aren’t paying attention. We ignore this truth at our peril!
A qualifying question here, of course, is: to what degree are you bothered or impeded by a cluttered space?
The answer (a moving target, sometimes) has insight about how much effort you might cultivate for a more satisfying experience. It’s about first the functionality, then the feel of the space— before any of the actual stuff.
I know that Putting Away can sometimes make the difference between being “late” or not-- which can admittedly be a bit of a barrier to getting started. It can be difficult to rouse the effort at the end of a long day or long trip. Other activities are surely more exciting or glamorous. But I’ll say this for it: the way it settles my nervous system, the way it lets me relax in my living spaces and move into my present and future self — is priceless.
I’m no Marie Kondo or Martha Stewart, and I'm not trying to be perfect. Although I DO require a high-degree of order and functionality to feel safe and presently-engaged in my own home, I don’t always get to the piles right away. Even though there are high-anxiety parts of me that are clamoring for the tidying/deep-clean, I also know I can be a slave to the never-ending process. Like life, it’s a balancing practice.
Putting Things Away, like… shoveling snow… it may feel repetitive and uninspired in it’s never-endingness. Yet— it creates a structure of trustworthiness because a prepared space is always moving forward, ready to meet the day. You can trust that your things are ready for you to use them again. There can be a joy in taking care of oneself in this most basic way.
When you put your own things away, you begin to understand the sort of IMPACT you have on the world, your family, your living spaces, and yourself. Which is a VERY 21st Century-Able skill!
