A few weeks ago, I listened to episode 284 of The Best of Both Worlds where Laura Vanderkam interviewed Dana K. White. Dana is a professional organizer and during the interview she recalled a moment when she realized that the purpose of containers was to contain things.
Containers provide a boundary or a limit.
Her perspective was that buying the container wasn’t enough. You had to have the discipline to both limit what you had to fit in the container and the discipline to keep your things in the container.
This inspired me to thing beyond our physical clutter.
What if other kinds of clutter could be better “contained”? Digital, mental, calendar, etc.
How might do we do that?
My Perspective – Virtual Boundaries
As I thought about the container and Dana’s perspective, I realized that the idea of the boundary or limit was key to keeping things “contained”.
Most of the time, we don’t set limits to or even recognize non-physical clutter. We may feel that there is too much going on in our heads or filling up our calendar, but we are less likely to be able to contain it.
I believe that a good first step would be to define the containers and what is acceptable. Here are two examples of how that might apply to non-physical clutter:
Calendar – We could start by asking the question “what an ideal workday would be?”. How much time would be spent in meetings vs. doing individual work? What types of meetings would be most beneficial? When do you need breaks? Set the answers as the container you would like your calendar to fit it. When it doesn’t, challenge yourself to see if you can adjust.
Mental Clutter – For mental clutter, we could start by making the clutter visible and physical by spending 30 minutes dumping all the thoughts on paper. Then, pull from the list items that fit in a new “container”. An example would be a 30-minute container: Find 6 items on the list that can be done in less than 5 minutes, set a timer, and get them finished.
Your Turn
Have you thought about containers providing boundaries or limits?
Where does your life have clutter that can’t be contained in a physical box?
How might you think differently about clutter and defining boundaries to contain it?