House Hushing

I ran across this term a while ago. Turns out it’s a fancy name for de-cluttering, something I don’t need much help with, which is surprising as—in my early years—I demonstrated great potential for becoming a hoarder.

As a child and teenager, I saved everything—schoolwork, report cards, letters, magazines, college notes, my baby teeth, scraps of paper that one day might prove useful, and an impressive collection of bottle caps—to the point where, when I got married and bought a house, I was able to fill the loft area with an assortment of boxes containing twenty-five years of useless junk. (Except for the bottle caps; they were a lot of fun to play with).

In my defence, I grew up in a rural area with scant resources so you never knew when something might come in handy, though how a letter from my Texas pen-pal, Angela Howell, that I received in July 1968 might prove useful, I can’t say.

Fortunately, my initial wife and I split up and, during the four tumultuous years that followed—wherein I lost my house and all the associated storage room—I moved seven times. And let me tell you, there is nothing that laser-focuses the mind on what is truly necessary like schlepping all your worldly possessions from one place to another, over and over again. The first move involved a friend with a pickup truck, the final was accomplished by filling two and a half black garbage sacks and tossing them into the back seat of my Nissan Sentra.

From that time on, I have not had a problem with hoarding things. In the physical sense, that is. As soon as I discovered spreadsheets and databases, however, I realized that data took up no room at all and I could, therefore, collect as much as I desired. And I desired a lot.

There was nothing, it seemed, that could not be tallied up on a spreadsheet or recorded in a database.

Among other things, I kept track of all the hikes I went on (this, actually, was when, how, and why I started this blog), all the cigars I acquired and their eventual disposition (smoked or gifted), every job I held and every penny I earned from the 24^th of August 1974 to the 1^st of May 2014 (I gave up after I retired because, really, what was the point?), every article of clothing I owned (along with a randomizer that put together outfits for me so I didn’t have to think about it in the morning), and all the books I have read since the 1^st of November 1995 (I still maintain this one; some things are too useful to set aside).

I also maintained a spreadsheet listing all the places I had lived, with categories for things like “storage space,” “porch size,” “access to swimming,” and the like, along with when I moved in and out, the rent, and cost per square foot. This was cross-referenced to my list of partners—who also suffered the indignity of being similarly categorized—so the ratings could be combined and run through a formula that was so complex I no longer understand it, to return an aggregate Quality of Life score.

At the height of this listmania, I even started a spreadsheet to track all the spreadsheets (there were sixty-one entries, which included four separate entries for calendars, each on a different device and each recording a different activity) along with a scoring system to help me decide if they were useful or not.

Long story short: I got better. But, as obsessions are wont to do, spreadsheets and their associated activities never stop trying to insinuate themselves into my life, which necessitates the occasional House Hushing—or, more exactly, Life Hushing—of obsolete or unhelpful activities.

Unfortunately, I’m not able to achieve this using the method described in the House Hushing article, which is to completely empty a room—furniture, knick-knacks, wall-hangings, lamps, carpet, the works—and then gradually and mindfully return those items which are useful and/or enhance your life. The rest of the junk you can throw out. To transition this to Life Hushing, I’d have to refuse to do anything except lounge on the sofa drinking Corona and eating crisps while watching Homes Under the Hammer, Bargain Hunt, and Rip-Off Britain for a few weeks, then, gradually and with much thoughtfulness, decide which activities to take on for a more enriching existence.

For obvious reasons, this simply won’t do, so I therefore rely on the method employed by my wife and I when we declutter our tiny flat every few months, which is to simply look at what has accumulated and decide if it is still useful or not. And I’m happy to report that this bout of Mind Hushing turned up a surprising candidate that, at first glance, appears essential, but after mindful consideration revealed itself to be a colossal waste of time: Managing the Budget.

I sense a few eyebrows raised. “But you need to manage your household budget!” you say, and you’d be right, though you’d be thinking of balancing your bank account, whereas my method involves juggling no less than eight spreadsheets, an Access database, insanely complex calculations, the importing of hundreds of lines of data, and the accounting for every cup of tea purchased and every coin dropped into a busker’s hat.

It didn’t start out that way, but that’s how it ended up, and only a fraction of that is necessary (unless, of course, someone asks me how much I spent at Chococo’s Café on the 21st of October 2022—£7.30 in case you’re interested—but, alas, no one has).

And so, after a few days of mentally bargaining with myself, that onerous task has been wrestled into submission, saving me hours of unnecessary work each month. I feel lighter and freer for having made this decision, but I know I need to remain vigilant, because—just as in the real world, where there is always another book to acquire and add to the teetering pile—in my mind, there is always something else that needs counting.

Always.

If you or someone you love has been affected by the issues raised in this blog post,
help is available by following the links below,
or engaging the services of a licensed psychologist:

NHS – Obsessive Compulsive Overview

Arithmomania, signs and treatment