My sister-in-law, Alli, said to me before Kate was born that once I spent my days at home I'd go stir crazy finding ways to fill the time and ultimately come up with some random organizational ideas. Well, it's happened. I'm calling it the 90 percent rule.
If I have an idea worth living by lately, it’s the 90 percent rule. It started coming to light when I started cleaning out my closet last week. As I pulled all the stuff out of my old closet and started organizing everything, I realized how many items were things I really rarely wore — out-of-season pieces, weird sparkly holiday crap, stuff that really should go in some kind of costume box. I asked myself what I accessed the most, and it was stuff like workout clothes, pajamas, well-fitting khakis, a couple great cotton long-sleeved shirts that feel great everytime I put them on. Decent jeans. And the staples, like socks. Chones. It was fascinating to me how buried all my everyday gear was, while there were tons of things on top that had so little to do with my usual life patterns.
I vowed to make a change. I wanted to face the facts. What does the majority of my life require for me to feel good about it? What tools do I need? How do I dress for it? What do I do with my hours? What are the bulk of my food choices? With whom do I spend my time? And toward what end? I looked at the hard truth: I’m living with and holding on to WAY too much stuff for contingencies. I’m storing, managing, maintaining, and moving around all these things that I use incredibly rarely, 10 percent of the time in a very generous assessment. It’s time to break it down to percentages…maximum effectiveness per shelf inch, per hour spent. I am going to pare my life down to the stuff I’m USING, ENJOYING, or ASPIRING TO 90 percent of the time.
Can I really let go of the things I only need once in awhile? After all, most of this stuff didn’t just fall into my life — I bought it, or someone gave it to me, maybe I even made it. If you’re like me, you really think you need everything you have. And then you become more annoyed than comforted by your things, and so you start to think about streamlining. The urge to simplify has probably reached most of us in some way these days, but that nagging sense that “I might need it someday” still causes hesitation for me as I try to clear things out. But the 90 percent rule helps with this. Is this an item I use in my most-of-the-time life? If not, can I borrow it? Rent it? Make it? Trust that I can figure something out when the time comes?
This is trickier than it looks, to start glancing about with a critical eye at all your excess supplies, clothing, tools. It asks you to be realistic about the way you’re really living, and to be honest about how close that is to your ideal life. It made me realize that there are two versions of myself: the one I imagine that I am, and the one I ACTUALLY am. There’s the me that loves the idea of yoga, but not the actual doing of it. I love the idea of a beautifully tailored, perfectly made bed everyday, but the reality is that giving our comfy down duvet a good fluff in the morning is about all I’m willing to do. I love giving dinner parties, but with a new baby in the house and time more crunched than ever, I think it’s probably wise to put the fancy china in the back cupboards for awhile.
I sleep a good nine hours a night (which is awesome for a new parent — I appreciate little Kate's habits more every day!), so my bed, sheets, pajamas, and sleeping companion better all be great. (They are!). I exercise a few times a week and tend to do errands in my workout clothes for a few hours afterwards. This makes up the majority of my time in public lately. Are my workout clothes comfortable? Pleasant to wear? Flattering? If I’m going to be living in these clothes for most of my days, I’m not going to wear ratty faded crappy fraying leggings with an ill-fitting top and a fleece with a hole in it. Not anymore I’m not.
Once on Oprah, she had on two guys helping viewers clean out their closets. The guys suggested you ask yourself three questions:
1. Do I love this?
2. Does it fit?
3 Does this support the image I want to present to the world?
That last one really gets me. And fits with my 90 percent approach. It’s not just clothes either. It might be the bike you haven’t ridden in five years, the chip carving set, the rice cooker/juicer/pasta roller machine, the ‘learn to crochet’ dvd, the Anthony Robbins cassettes, the five hammocks in your store room. Even if these things once represented who you were or wanted to be, if they're not current, it’s time to let them go so that new, better, more appropriate items can be beckoned in. I find myself asking over and over: is this supportive of the life I am living and want to live? If not, it’s out of here.
Let me know where the 90 percent rule might make sense in your life (if anywhere). It’s helping me in little ways and I’d love to hear about what you think.
