I don’t know many successful people – and by that I mean people I respect and who deserve their success – who surround themselves with clutter. It might be an amusing comedic meme for a character in a film or programme to be successful and yet live in a pile of clothes and dirty dishes, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen that in reality.

The successes I respect tend to exists in an organised environment, indeed often minimalistic. One place for recording everything that requires a decision, immediate referential filing for items once read and digested, immediate planning for an action resulting from input, in the appropriate place and for rediscovery at the appointed time.  A clean, tidy, organised and clutter-free workspace, usually paralleled by an equally open personal space.

I wish I had that.

Unfortunately, like most people I live with others. Others who have not delved as deeply into the benefits of self- and space-organisation as I. Those whose idea of being organised means having just the one pile – in each room – of ‘whatever it is they might ever need’. But it’s in the one place so they’ll find it if they have to.

#except they don’t, because they forget which pile/room they left it in.

And at the risk of talking out of turn, the people who live like that tend to be indisciplined, overweight, unfit and flighty. Everything last minute, and everything an inconvenience. That may not be abundantly clear with young people whose metabolism is yet to disappoint, but after 40 all that indiscipline suddenly manifests itself around your waistline.

Which raises the question – which came first, the disorganisation or the indiscipline? It’s a good one.

But there is a chap called Peter Walsh who opines that fat people are fat because they hoard stuff. Caveat – he’s not saying that is the primary or only reason but hear ‘him’ out through me. He does suggest that when we hoard, we create an environment that owns us, rather than an environment that we own. As the less disciplined see their environment take charge of their lives, they surrender to it. When it finally takes command, their preferred coping mechanism is – you guessed it, comfort eating.

It’s hardly scientific, but he has demonstrated on Oprah how finally regaining control of the environment they lost, resulted in losing the weight they had gained. (I am particularly proud of that sentence. 😊 )

I am engaged in clutter clearance now. And it is fun watching how quickly I decide to dump something, while others’ stuff awaits assessment – for days. And how the moment I clear four square feet of space, one of my children needs something stored ‘just for a bit’ and it gets filled again.

Keeping an ordered environment takes discipline, but there are peripheral effects on your physical and mental health – and that of the people around you who, like me, wish to heaven that you’d get your ‘arris in gear and throw some cr4p out.

Rant over.

Exercise the First Resolution on your personal and professional environments. I guarantee you’ll feel better, unless you live with a hoarder. Then it’s a case of controlling any homicidal tendencies you may have.