Blogaroo

One of the things that drives me most crazy about my life is that my desk always looks like a hurricane hit it and then, just as it was starting to recover, a herd of elephants walked across it, throwing paper into the air as they passed. The idea of tidy, ordered, perfect rooms fills me with happiness, but in reality I can’t be trusted not to make a mess of anything. I get into clean elevators and by the time we get to the third floor the place is full of junk, with small children drowning in oceans of dust and paper.

It’s not that I don’t try to be tidy – I do, I really do – it’s just that I seem to have a biological need to make things messy. And it’s not that mess doesn’t bother me, because, if I’m honest, it stresses me out more than you I thought possible. It’s just that part of my brain doesn’t think about the things I could do right then and now to improve things.

Part of it, I am sure, is that I don’t live in the perfect clean palace that my head lives in. You know when they go back to the Grand Designs house just after they’re finished, and everything clean and white and stainless steel and slate and there’s no clutter and, despite the fact that there’s no evidence of it really living in the place, there’s a cat – a magic, moult-free cat – slinking around the place like it’s in a sofa advert? That’s the house my head lives in. And because I live in a cluttery flat, my head says what’s the point of trying? Who are you trying to impress? It’ll still look bad anyway.

But my desk is a constant problem. I’m a web designing student, I live at my desk. But between notes and bills and textbooks and to-do lists scribbled on everything I feel lost. I’m sure it affects the quality of what I do. But no matter how much I try to keep things under control, it controls me again within two days.

So here is my pledge of the week: tonight I am going to tidy my desk. And then I am going to tidy it up again every day. File things away every day. I want to be in control for once, and my desk seems like a good place to start. Well, until I’m showing Kevin McCloud round my brand new house, anyway.