By nature I am a slob. A wicked big slob. It was natural for me to put clean and dirty clothes into to same pile, as if by fission I would end up with only modestly funky clothes. The big pile was a prominent feature in the corner of the room. It had books, wet towels, Xacto knives - you name it, and when company came over? I just threw a blanket over the pile. I remember one time I had a guest at the house and I made them wait downstairs while I stuffed everything into a sleeping bag and threw it in a room mates closet. Grody to the max, but when you work too many hours and live with too many roommates who drive you from the house sometimes it's easier to build a false reality than face the real one.
When the time came and I was enlightened to the effects of my slovenly ways it was clear that I wasn't just unorganized, there was a surplus of clothes. I had enough garb in that pile to clothe me for a month and a half without doing laundry, which was frequently the case. It would take two full days to properly wash and dry everything in that pile. Heaps and satellite piles sat in the cellar in big black trash bags waiting for me to get the time, washing only the essential delicates as need dictated.
Years later I reformed. During one of my many purges I sorted out the gristle from my wardrobe. Irredeemably damaged and uncomfortable items went first. Sweaters that were too itchy, shirts that were too tight, unforgivably stained or torn pants were good candidates. Anything that you would wear only because everything else is dirty should not be in the closet. Today I am left with mostly durable, mostly dark clothing. I am still a slob and spill all sorts of things on my person, and still absently wipe my hands on my pants when a towel is out of reach (I have towels everywhere now). I keep work clothes in the closet where I can't see them or touch them and my leisure wardrobe is on a rolling rack, neatly pressed and organized. I like to keep my clothes out in the open to remind myself of how far I have come.
Think that was the worst part? Far from it. This habit wasn't restricted to my dress, everything was like this. Worse than this was the dishes. As long as there was a clean dish to eat off, there were ten dirty dishes that could wait. I didn't do dishes after I ate like I do now, I did them when someone complained, and frequently only washed the dishes I needed. Essentially, the dishes weren't stored in the cupboard, they were stored dirty in the sink. Glasses were all over the house with little petri dishes of dried up whatever in the bottom. In my defense, I didn't live alone and a lot of the trouble came from not taking responsibility for using a glass, or using a similar glass and being confused about which one it was, and there was NO WAY I was washing a room mates glass... In the end we all wound up in a philosophical deadlock, and drank out of travel mugs that were off limits to others. Yes, the glasses all stayed dirty on the windows sills and side tables, I think until we moved.
Much has changed. Far from the punk rock, thrift store dishes, I don't even eat off anything that hasn't won a design award. There are only enough for two or three people, so there is no surplus to pile up. I used to have different cups for different drinks, but now I just have an all purpose glass for cold and hot alike. This sort of thing saves a lot of space on the shelf.
To sum up, minimalism didn't really kill my inner slob, but it made it harder to make a mess. I know myself and my weaknesses and if I hadn't become a minimalist there would still be great big piles all around. Really, how useful is something if you keep in a pile on the floor? Do you even value it? The soultion was so simple: I shouldn't have stuff. No stuff, no mess.
With this perspective it was easy to understand that I was wasting a lot of time and energy moving piles around and sorting through dirty/clean stuff. Its ironic how exhausting being a lazy slob can be. I never really felt comfortable in my home, which caused a lot of other problems. It's funny to tell the story, but at the time it was a pretty terrible way to live.
