After multiple years of merely surviving, I am faced with the problem of how to start living again. I’m really struggling with the dimensionality of the problem, and I am wondering how y’all would approach this. My aim with this question is not just to receive advice relevant to my situation, but to discuss more generally different approaches to this problem.
I only realised how bad things had become when I moved home. I know that I have more stuff than I need, but because I feel like I’ve been living mostly on autopilot, regular decluttering heuristics haven’t been helpful; if I get rid of everything I haven’t used in X time, then I’d get rid of most things I own. Even before I moved, there was a feedback loop where when I needed to use an item, it was never where I expected it to be, so I never used it. Then the more that this happened, the more that stuff would be boxed away, out of sight out of mind. In the past, I’ve found it useful to put away items in the first place I looked for them, but that doesn’t work for items that I don’t know how to begin searching for them; I don’t have much in the way of categories, so I often end up rummaging in boxes of assorted objects.
Part of this problem is that I definitely need to buy some more storage furniture, like shelves or drawers, but it’s hard to do that if I don’t know how many different categories there are, or how large they are. Sometimes it’s possible to come at the organisation from the opposite direction and say “given the storage available to me, what items do I need and how should I arrange them?”, but I have so much of a blank slate that I don’t know where to start. It’s like trying to solve the equation “a + b + c = 20”: there are too many unknowns and I get swamped by all the possibilities. I’m good at solving problems when I’m given a set of constraints and a goal, but I’m overwhelmed by having to devise the constraints and goals from scratch. I tried to start with building a baseline and carving out spaces or categories for the things I currently use, but my current baseline is so low that I complete that task quite quickly, and it only emphasises that my life, as it is now, is not enough for me.
I know that I need to ground my approach in the life that I want to lead, so that I can start making progress towards it. However, if I build systems intended to be used by the ideal version of me, I will end up with something that is incompatible with the current, emotionally broken version of me. These two versions of me are in tension with each other, and the overarching challenge is finding a route from one to the other. I don’t know where to start though. I feel like I should be interrogating myself about what I actually want, but I feel ill-equipped to answer that question after many months of deprioritising my hopes or wants because of struggling to survive. I feel scared to want anything, because there are so many unknowns that I don’t have a sense of what’s possible. An added complexity is that I am autistic, and thus really struggle without a routine. With so much uncertainty, I am feeling unanchored, and the basics of survival are taking up so much of my executive function and burning me out. Structure begets structure for people like me, but it’s hard to crystallise some certainty if you don’t have anything to build around.
So please tell me if you have experienced this kind of unanchored-ness, and what helped you to move past it? If you’ve ever had to build your life and your space from scratch, how did you tackle the problem of carving out categories? I imagine that if you have faced this problem, that it may be something you grapple with on an ongoing basis rather than solving outright. If so, how did you manage to continue living a life that was in construction (I find that partly built systems can fall apart due to regular life demands pulling your attention and effort away before you’ve routinized the new thing). What advice have you found helpful in the past?
Adam Savage once pointed out that organization isn’t a problem to be solved it’s a process to be managed. You won’t find a perfect solution, but you can try things out and see how they work and make more changes later once you have new data to work with.
If you have been just surviving, you probably haven’t had the luxury of indecision. You need solutions, answers, and only have time for the things on the critical path. Now you’re off that path and things are less straightforward. Take any advice you like, but understand the real answer will be something you need to grow yourself by fertilizing the soil with ideas and giving them time to either grow or rot.
That said, my organization starts with giving everything a place. It doesn’t have to be a perfect place, or even a good place at first, and can just be wherever it is right now.
When you use the item, it returns to it’s place. As you learn how you use the items, you can then start changing their place to be better. You’re thinking about categories, but that comes from how you use or intend to use that item. That is knowledge you need to develop again, so don’t worry about it yet.
For furniture I like things that have clearly separate spaces that can be filled as I define things. The Kallax line of IKEA shelves is great as they are just cubes you can fill with bins, objects, or split with shelves and drawers. I move then around constantly, but that’s fine since this isn’t a problem to solve and in just managing the process.
I think of my things has having 3 ur-categories. Things that are used constantly, things that are used regularly, and things that are used seldom.
Things that are used constantly should simply be available. They should be in the spot where you can just grab them. Think, like, car keys.
Things that are used regularly should be stored with things they will be used with. For example, you can store your coffee in the same cabinet that you store your coffee mugs in.
Things that are used seldom should be stored with things they are like. For example, spare usb cables should be stored with the other spare usb cables, which are stored with all the other spare cables, which are stored with all the other electronics odds and ends. This is basically leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for yourself to follow when you scratch your head and wonder where you stored your spare usb cables.
I appreciate the perspective in your second paragraph. I am aware of how tumultuous history makes me better at handling huge, high stakes crises (despite struggling to cope with minor issues), but I hadn’t considered how that dynamic could be affecting this quest.
When you are aiming to give everything a place, do you tend to do it from a bottom-up, item-by-item perspective, or a top-down, categories-then-items approach? For example, the top down mode is like if I defined a category like “nail-care”, and then listed/gathered the items that belonged to that category (nail clippers, cuticle oil, nail file, etc.) and designated a home for that category. The bottom up one might start with me actually using the nail clippers and then thinking “where should this one item go?” I find it especially hard to find homes for individual, loose items like this, but if I don’t put them somewhere, then when I stumble across other things in that category (cuticle oil etc.), I can’t find the nail clippers, which hinders the ability of categories to begin to form.
I find categories useful because my working memory is trash (likely ADHD related, which I should have mentioned in my post). Like, by encapsulating a list of 3 items (e.g. nail clippers, cuticle oil, nail file) with a category, it abstracts away a lot of unnecessary information and I’ve reduced the problem from “find homes for these three items” to “find a home for the nail stuff”. Currently, the default place for most of my stuff is for it to be spread across a couple of large boxes, and that makes it impossible for categories to form. I also often find myself paralysed with dread because I have historically found it useful to ensure I return items to their designated places, and my inability to find places for things causes me to just not use the things.
You sound a lot like me. Most of my (admittedly small) room was packed into a giant box for over a year due to reasons beyond my control and once I was finally able to unpack it I had a meltdown because I had no actual space for anything.
My approach and my advice are different so take that as you will.
My approach: make a complaint list about all the things I couldn’t store properly and try to find some half assed furniture, then go from there. I got a small bookshelf, a set of plastic drawers and a storage mirror for my door (giant hanging mirror that is basically a jewelry box inside).
My suggestion: get some smaller, cheaper shelves/furniture/open (small!) baskets and see where stuff ends up naturally, then go from there. Eventually you’ll have more concrete complaints you can address and change as needed.
Starting from complete scratch is overwhelming, so throwing anything at a wall to see what sticks is better than nothing, at least from my own ADHD perspective.
And don’t be afraid to ask for in-person help if it’s available to you (friends, family etc.). Sounding boards/physical presence can also help massively.
My approach would be to find one thing and define it a home. For example, I keep nail clippers near my computer desk in an IKEA letter tray with other small, hard to group items like my lip balm, SD card readers, flash drives, ETC. From there, when I’m going through a bin of random shit and I find my cuticle shears, I have another item to group it with and a home for both.
If some items are hard to find a home for, create a place for those objects to live together like a found-family trope.