After I was banned from tidying other people’s spaces and had nowhere to turn but my own room, I took a good look around it and was struck by a surprising fact. There were far more items that needed discarding than I had noticed before—a shirt in my closet that I had never worn along with an outdated skirt that I wouldn’t wear again, books on my shelves that I knew I didn’t need. I realized with a shock that I was guilty of exactly the same thing I had been so bitterly accusing my family of doing. Not being in a position to criticize others, I sat down with my garbage bags and focused on tidying my own space.
After about two weeks, a change began to occur in my family. My brother, who had refused, no matter how much I had complained, to get rid of anything, began a thorough sorting of his belongings. In a single day, he disposed of more than two hundred books. Then my parents and my sister gradually began to sort and discard their clothes and accessories. In the end, my whole family was able to keep the house much tidier than before.
To quietly work away at disposing of your own excess is actually the best way of dealing with a family that doesn’t tidy. As if drawn into your wake, they will begin weeding out unnecessary belongings and tidying without your having to utter a single complaint. It may sound incredible, but when someone starts tidying it sets off a chain reaction.
Cleaning quietly on one’s own generates another interesting change—the ability to tolerate a certain level of untidiness among your family members. Once I was satisfied with my own room, I no longer felt the urge to dispose of things belonging to my siblings or parents. When I noticed that communal spaces such as the living room or bathroom were messy, I cleaned them up without a second thought and never bothered to mention it. I have noticed this same change occur in many of my clients as well.
If you feel annoyed with your family for being untidy, I urge you to check your own space, especially your storage. You are bound to find things that need to be thrown away. The urge to point out someone else’s failure to tidy is usually a sign that you are neglecting to take care of your own space. This is why you should begin by discarding only your own things. You can leave the communal spaces to the end. The first step is to confront your own stuff.
What you don’t need, your family doesn’t either
My sister is three years younger than me. Quiet and a bit on the shy side, she prefers to stay inside and draw or read quietly rather than to go out and socialize. Without a doubt, she suffered the most from my research on tidying, serving as my unsuspecting victim. By the time I was a university student, my focus was on “discarding,” but there were always things that I found hard to dispose of, such as a T-shirt that I really liked but that somehow didn’t look right. Unable to bring myself to part with it, I would try the item on repeatedly, standing in front of the mirror, but in the end, would be forced to conclude that it just didn’t suit me. If it was brand new, or a gift from my parents, the thought of getting rid of it made me feel very guilty.
At times like this, my sister came in very handy. The “gift for my sister” method seemed the perfect way to cast off such items. When I say “gift,” I don’t mean that I wrapped it up like a present—far from it. With the unwanted outfit in my hand, I would barge into my sister’s room where she lay on her bed reading contentedly. Extracting the book from her hand, I would say, “You want this T-shirt? I’ll give it to you if you like.” Seeing the puzzled look on her face, I would deal the final blow. “It’s brand new and really cute. But if you don’t need it, I’ll have to throw it away. Are you OK with that?”
My poor, mild-mannered sister would have no choice but to say, “I guess I’ll take it then.”
This happened so frequently that my sister, who hardly ever shopped, had a closet jammed to overflowing. Although she did wear some of the clothes I gave her, there were many more that she wore only once if ever. Yet I continued to give her “presents.” After all, they were good clothes and I thought she should be happy to have more. I only realized how wrong I was after I began my consulting business and met a client whom I will call “K.”