The Cycle Problem

Do you ever wonder how your space becomes a mess? Peter Walsh explains that it is a cycle problem.

We are all familiar with laundry...after it is worn it gets put into the hamper (hopefully!), from your hamper it gets put into the washer, once clean you transfer it to the dryer, when dry it is folded or hung up and finally it gets put away. The worst thing you could do would be to stop this cycle by leaving a load in the washer after it has been washed. What would you get? A mound of smelly laundry. Why? You didn't complete the cycle!

Papers that come into our homes have a cycle (process) that needs to be completed, too. Paper comes into our homes from the mailbox or our kid's backpacks, we look through it and make decisions: act on it, file it or throw it away...a cycle completed. If we don't complete the cycle it becomes a pile of stinky paper cluttering up our surfaces.

If you want a glass of milk and then stop the cycle half way through by not putting the carton back in the refrigerator you have sour milk. If you change your clothes three times in the morning but don't hang them back up you have broken a cycle and end up with a messy bedroom.

Walsh says, "We have a choice: to be mindful and complete the cycle, or to end up with a stinky load of washing in the metaphorical machine. Inside we're all 8-year-olds expecting someone to pick up after us. Those days are gone."

Make a plan, a cycle, for those frustrating areas where things seem to accumulate and then choose to finish the "cycle."

Read more of Peter Walsh's interview in the March 2009 issue of O Magazine by clicking here.