I’ve started to watch the YouTube channel Clean That Up. It started with me pragmatically searching for how to clean something up in my apartment that needed cleaning, but then I went down a bit of a rabbit hole and watched a bunch of his videos. Now they appear in my feed and I watch them periodically. To my surprise, I actually quite enjoy them.
It’s made me realize how much skill it takes to clean. Nothing in the ballpark of requiring a PhD, but I dunno, it’s not trivial. Different situations call for different tools, techniques and cleaning materials. But the thing that really caught my attention is simply knowing what to clean. In watching his videos I often am like “Oh, I wouldn’t have thought to clean that but I’m glad that I know now.”
One example that comes to my mind is trash cans. Previously I thought of trash cans as things you line with bags. You put the garbage in the bag and take the bag out when the garbage is full. The garbage never touches the can, so you don’t need to clean the can. This makes sense in theory, but in practice things don’t always work out that smoothly.
I just moved into a new (furnished) apartment and the garbage cans were all gross. I had to take the bags out and clean the cans. And today I was at a nice tea shop that is generally very clean, but I noticed that in the bathroom the trash can was gross.
The trash can in my apartment was actually noticeable but I don’t know if the one in the tea shop was. If I hadn’t been thinking about cleanliness recently I might not have noticed it. But even without having consciously noticed it, I think that subconsciously it might have bothered me.
Relatedly, I have a feeling that cleanliness—both consciously being aware that things are clean and unconsciously being aware that things are clean—helps most people achieve a stronger peace of mind. I watched a YouTube video a few weeks ago titled Zen Monk Reveals: Why Cleaning Matters More Than Meditation, so it must be true.
But seriously, it does seem plausible. I couldn’t find any good actual research on the subject, but anecdotally I feel like people often breathe notably easier when things are clean.
And it’s one of those things that is “important if true”. Peace of mind, clarity of mind, emotional regulation—whatever you want to call it, especially for people doing serious knowledge work, I think readers here will agree that it’s important.
Some people will claim that they aren’t bothered by a lack of cleanliness. Some of them will be correct, but I hypothesize that some of them will be wrong. Through a failure of introspection or something, I think people sometimes don’t realize how much something like a lack of cleanliness is affecting them.
I suppose the actionable thing here would be to try cleaning more and seeing how it makes you feel. Maybe it makes you feel a lot better than you would have thought. And maybe it’s worth spending an extra 30 minutes a week to achieve those benefits. Or maybe it’s worth paying for outside help.
It’s also possible that cleaning is worthwhile but the benefits aren’t noticable enough to you. I’m not sure what to do about that. My instinct is that for most people it is worth biasing yourself in the direction of cleaning more than you otherwise would, but not too much more, and I’m not too confident.
I’ve started to watch the YouTube channel Clean That Up. It started with me pragmatically searching for how to clean something up in my apartment that needed cleaning, but then I went down a bit of a rabbit hole and watched a bunch of his videos. Now they appear in my feed and I watch them periodically. To my surprise, I actually quite enjoy them.
It’s made me realize how much skill it takes to clean. Nothing in the ballpark of requiring a PhD, but I dunno, it’s not trivial. Different situations call for different tools, techniques and cleaning materials. But the thing that really caught my attention is simply knowing what to clean. In watching his videos I often am like “Oh, I wouldn’t have thought to clean that but I’m glad that I know now.”
One example that comes to my mind is trash cans. Previously I thought of trash cans as things you line with bags. You put the garbage in the bag and take the bag out when the garbage is full. The garbage never touches the can, so you don’t need to clean the can. This makes sense in theory, but in practice things don’t always work out that smoothly.
I just moved into a new (furnished) apartment and the garbage cans were all gross. I had to take the bags out and clean the cans. And today I was at a nice tea shop that is generally very clean, but I noticed that in the bathroom the trash can was gross.
The trash can in my apartment was actually noticeable but I don’t know if the one in the tea shop was. If I hadn’t been thinking about cleanliness recently I might not have noticed it. But even without having consciously noticed it, I think that subconsciously it might have bothered me.
Relatedly, I have a feeling that cleanliness—both consciously being aware that things are clean and unconsciously being aware that things are clean—helps most people achieve a stronger peace of mind. I watched a YouTube video a few weeks ago titled Zen Monk Reveals: Why Cleaning Matters More Than Meditation, so it must be true.
But seriously, it does seem plausible. I couldn’t find any good actual research on the subject, but anecdotally I feel like people often breathe notably easier when things are clean.
And it’s one of those things that is “important if true”. Peace of mind, clarity of mind, emotional regulation—whatever you want to call it, especially for people doing serious knowledge work, I think readers here will agree that it’s important.
Some people will claim that they aren’t bothered by a lack of cleanliness. Some of them will be correct, but I hypothesize that some of them will be wrong. Through a failure of introspection or something, I think people sometimes don’t realize how much something like a lack of cleanliness is affecting them.
I suppose the actionable thing here would be to try cleaning more and seeing how it makes you feel. Maybe it makes you feel a lot better than you would have thought. And maybe it’s worth spending an extra 30 minutes a week to achieve those benefits. Or maybe it’s worth paying for outside help.
It’s also possible that cleaning is worthwhile but the benefits aren’t noticable enough to you. I’m not sure what to do about that. My instinct is that for most people it is worth biasing yourself in the direction of cleaning more than you otherwise would, but not too much more, and I’m not too confident.