Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Hoarders and Rule # 17

I LOVE watching the show "Hoarders." I have no clue why.  I find it simultaneously repulsive and intriguing.  I do realize it is a serious mental illness/compulsive addiction, but I find myself wondering: How does that happen?!

And then I walk into my husband's office and I realize the answer.

Husband isn't a real hoarder, but he doesn't follow Rule # 17:

Touch things once.

My mom and dad came up with this one.  It stipulates that you only touch something once.  Simple right?

Here are some examples:

When doing laundry, touch each piece of clean laundry once.  Take it out of the dryer, fold it, put it away.  It takes more time and effort to keep touching it to put in a pile over by the tv while you fold, and then to put the folded stacks on the bed, and then to move the stack at 11:00pm to sleep, and then to move the stack to find your clothes at 6 am, and on and on.

Dishes: take the dirty dish, rinse it and put in the dishwasher rather than touching it once to put it in the sink, then again to wash the crusty stuff off, and then into the dishwasher.

Trash: instead of putting the empty juice container back into the fridge, while it is still in your hand from pouring, just toss it in the can.

It sounds stupid, but if you touch things once, piles don't materialize, clean clothes don't get wrinkled and need to be washed again, and you don't find trash anywhere except the garbage can.

Believe me.  Rule #17 save time.  And lives.

2 comments:

  1. This is my savior at so many things- I tell myself this all the time! The only thing I fail at this with is on mail/papers. I have ZERO organization since we moved into our new house, and so now I know where NOTHING paper-related is. Which is bad, since I'm now trying to do taxes and all that. :(

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  2. AMEN. I have tried to make that a habit in my life, except that I break that rule when I can't decide to keep an item of clothing or give it away. I'll put it on a hanger on my closet curtains (I have no closet doors, so sad) so I can see it whenever I get into my closet. I have to touch it every day, and it really does help me decide whether to keep or toss it. If I haven't done anything about it (alterations, whatever) and don't care enough to hang it in the closet with the clothes I like, then I don't like it and off to DI it goes.

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