The Power of Tidying

When in doubt, tidy up (Brian Eno)

We had come to the end of the summer ‘holidays’.

Finally, it was my favourite month of the year: September.

Back to school (for the children). Back to School (for me). The hazy heat of summer moved over, replaced by that familiar fresh tang September air always brings, and with it renewed motivation.

When my 5yo returned to school after homeschooling in June, the veritable acres of time I was suddenly left with led to my most productive few weeks ever.

By the end of that term, I had completed a first draft of a second book (a commission), and had really hit my stride.

Come September, though, something stopped me from returning to that same delightful state of flow.

Instead of picking up my paintbrushes, I felt the need to clear, declutter, clean, tidy and organise (and decorate) the house. Anyone else?!

For a while, I felt guilty this was where my energy was going. Then, Austin Kleon yielded this useful piece of clarity:

Keep your tools tidy and your materials messy.

I keep one of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s ‘Oblique Strategies’ on a big sign above my desk:
WHEN IN DOUBT, TIDY UP.

Note that it says ‘when in doubt,’ not ‘always’. Tidying up is for when I’m stalled out or stuck. Tidying up a studio is – sorry, Ms.Kondo – not life-changing or magical. It’s just a form of productive procrastination (avoiding work by doing other work)

Austin Kleon ‘Keep Going’, p.154

Still overwhelmed, I drafted in the superpowers of the Tidyist (no, not a tidying elf as you might think, but in fact a real live, delightfully smiley and talented human: professional organiser Sophie). Sophie helped me restore order to the chaos in our house that was reflected in my mind.

The entire summer my office been a horror show:

but a few hours with Sophie, and all of a sudden I had a workspace!:

“For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned,” Benjamin Franklin you were not wrong!

Hiring Sophie was one of the best decisions I’ve made this year.

Whilst it felt like an indulgence at the time, it bought me the headspace and clarity I needed to be a better mum and furthermore enable me to turn up professionally as an illustrator.

Then, Stephen Pressfield put the cherry on top:

A Professional Seeks Order

When I lived in the back of my Chevy van, I had to dig my typewriter out from beneath layers of tire tools, dirty laundry, and soldering paperbacks. My truck was a nest, a hive, a hellhole on wheels whose sleeping surface I had to clear each night just to carve out a foxhole to snooze in.
The professional cannot live like this. He is on a mission. He will not tolerate disorder. He eliminates chaos from his world in order to banish it froths mind. He wants the carpet vacuumed and the threshold swept, so the Muse may enter and not soil her gown.

Stephen Pressfield, ‘The War of Art’, p.77

And funnily enough, as soon as the chaos was eliminated, the muse wafted in. But that is a story for another day…