You offer someone a ride in your car. You unlock your car. You open the driver-side door about 2 seconds before they open the passenger door. You instantly realize that your front seat is covered with stuff. Whether it be trash, games, random breakable items your mom gave you, etc.

All of a sudden it doesn’t matter what’s there, it all becomes backseat throwing material. As they lift the handle to start opening the door of the car, you start violently throwing the items on the seat into the backseat, not paying attention to what it is or if you need it. You apologize and make an excuse for having all the stuff in your seat and say you need to clean your car out.

They say it’s not a problem at all and that they can sit with the 3 bowling balls rolling around on the ground. It’s not a problem for them. You finally see a glimmer of hope as you see the leather of the seat below the stuff you’re moving. You finally move the last item (a 280 ft pack of foil obviously) and say they can sit.

How familiar is this to you? Are you the person who takes everything out of their car every time you park it? Or do you somehow always have stuff pile up in it even though you don’t know where it all comes from?

I’ve seen all ranges of this, but what’s interesting is that different people have different levels of clutter that they are okay with, and the levels of clutter depend on the location of the clutter.

For example, to rat myself out, my room has historically always been a mess. I, for whatever reason always seem to find myself with a pile or two of clothes on the ground and at least 30 random papers I had no recollection of every bringing into my room.

My car, in general, I’ve kept clean. The first car I owned, I never left anything in there. I always took it out. The trash, the games, the tools, whatever. Then when I lived on the mountain with no electricity I started keeping stuff in my car in case there was an emergency, and just because I needed tools and wanted to play games more and I didn’t want to have to load them up or forget them sometime when I needed them. This started a small habit that got very bad for awhile. I left everything in my car and it became a wreck. I eventually got fed up with it and now only leave stuff that I want to leave in there. Games in the back, tools, shoes, things I might want to keep in there so that I don’t forget them.

However, by far the thing that I keep cleanest and absolutely cannot handle being cluttered is my computer. As I see screen shares and see people with 6 different browsers open and 47 tabs in each of them, constantly moving things around, downloading files and not exiting out of the notifications — as I see this, I almost lose my sanity. I don’t know how people can work like that. I have to have a clean computer. Things need to be organized, there can’t be lots of notifications going or left open, etc.

I’m a pretty strict inbox 0 guy. If it’s not inbox 0, it’s at the VERY most still never past the line where you stop seeing the bottom of your inbox, and even that I can’t handle for long before I just archive an email and give myself a to do for later that day or the next day to do what I need to do.

My phone also has folders and apps that are located in the most efficient spot.

It’s odd to me that I can be, what seems, such a wreck when it comes to my room, yet such and OCD freak when it comes to my technology. Everyone is different and works differently, that’s why when teaching and learning, we have to understand that everyone’s minds work a little differently. You have to cater to the individual, not the general population.

Also, go clean your room.