Cleaning For Clarity
I buy a new domain every couple of months. I get an idea and no matter how terrible it is, I see if the dot com is available and snatch it up. I do this so often in fact, that my friends like to add “.org, .com,” or their favorite, “.gov,” to the ends of my sentences sometimes as a little joke. In keeping with tradition a few years ago an idea struck and I purchased the domain cleaningforclarity.com. I imagined it would be a site (and book) for people to understand how cleaning out their spaces also creates space in their minds and hearts.
The website and book dreams are still very much alive, but they are not the central purpose of this post.
It is this…
Cleaning for clarity (insert trademark here) is something I do before beginning any big project. It is essential to my creative process and perhaps you will find it helpful as well. I clean off my desk, organize my computer’s desktop, empty the trash, get out my Action Book, take a deep breath, and then get down to work. Having done this practice for some years now, I find that as I’m cleaning out my space I’m simultaneously making space in my mind for whatever I’m about to work on. An added bonus is the jolt I get by giving myself a self-imposed fresh start. There is nothing like a clean desk to begin working on.
A few days ago, I found my way back to Steven Pressfield’s, The War of Art. About halfway through is a chapter entitled, A Professional Seeks Order. The following exerpt says a little more about the benefits of cleaning for clarity:
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 moldering paperbacks. My truck was a nest, a hive, a hellhole on wheels whose sleeping surface I had to clear out a foxhole to snooze in.
The professional cannot live like that. He is on a mission. He will not tolerate disorder. He eliminates chaos from his world in order to banish it from his mind. He wants the carpet vacuumed and the threshold swept, so the Muse may enter and not soil her gown.
Some people can work in the midst of messiness. I am not one of those people. I insist on some semblance of order when making things. However, (and I can’t say this enough) cleaning for clarity isn’t just about cleaning. This powerful little ritual is as much about having a clean studio as it is about creating open space in my mind and my heart. I have enough distractions in my life and don’t need a stack of unfiled things on my desk, (or in my head) getting in the way of my next idea. And neither do you.
Do you clean for clarity? If so, tell how, I’d love to hear your process. If you don’t, say why the mess works for you.
Image via Lunch Box Brain
