price breakdown:

fasteners - 9.78

more fasteners - 9.49

paint - 14.20

even more fasteners - 6.85

paint + fasteners - 15.45

fasteners - 5.52

tubes - 53.19

total of $114.48

Here’s some pictures of the finished shelf and the process:

It also makes it less painful when people pass or things disappear. Not because you’ve done all the mourning that needs to be done ahead of time, but because you spent more time truly appreciating them.

Knowing everything and everyone will go eventually also imposes a sense of intentionality to how you spend your time. If you know a family member is passing soon, you’ll spend more time with them. When people find out they are going to die, they begin to appreciate what they love that much more. Cancer victims with months left to live will shift their entire lives to do the things they want to do. Often, I believe reminding yourself that you have a limited amount of time can instill a similar appreciation and sense of urgency that pushes people to live the lives they actually want to live.

It’s much more painful to lose someone if it’s a surprise. Forgetting the mortality of the ones you love means you spend more time taking them for granted, and you wish you had more time because of it. Of course, if you had had more time, it wouldn’t have changed anything, because you wouldn’t have been reminded of their mortality. Knowing and reminding yourself on a regular basis that every relationship, experience, routine, and person is temporary is an immensely grounding practice.

It allows you to look to your future, past unpleasant situations, as well as reminds you to fully appreciate the present. Blinding yourself to the changing nature of the world can be comforting, sure, but it is ultimately harmful to yourself in the long term when that change sneaks up on you.

Realistic planning, prioritization of your dreams, and spontaneity all suffer when you fail to acknowledge the things that will change in your life. It’s impossible to plan for the future when you refuse to believe that the future will be significantly different than the present. If you allow yourself to forget how little time we have to do the things we want, they will get put off for decades. Assuming tomorrow will be the same as today puts no pressure on you to do something spontaneous, as it could be done any day in the future.

I invite you to look at your space as a neighborhood. There’s research that shows people won’t litter in a space that they see as clean. The point of the organizational ritual is to create a neighborhood you don’t want to litter in, and systems to make it easy to avoid doing. It’s all about minimizing the effort needed to stay organized in the future. That might sound unrealistic, but I promise this is not a Mary Kondo-change-your-life task.

Everyone can have a systematized space. From the sailor, who keeps every item locked in place on the rolling ocean, to the soldier, who needs every item they own accessible, to the artist, well — maybe not the artist. Many walks of life come to study under the holy practice of organizing.

I offer 5 commandments for your studies, in order of importance:

1. Every item needs a home.
2. Sometimes, a home is a junk drawer.
3. Mold your space to your system.
4. Find your organizational votives.
5. An organized space is not always a tidy one.

A home is an assigned spot an item can return to when not being used. It must be a dedicated storage location. When an item is in its home, it can stay there. It doesn’t need to be moved when the room is cleaned, a new project is started, or another item needs to be reached.

When something is missing a home, it becomes a floater in your space. It moves from bed to desk to chair to floor. It causes a chaotic spark that makes it harder for other items to find their homes and descends your space into a cacophony of lost pens and stepped on clothes.

For the transient item, like a battery or a half used notepad, a junk drawer can be a home. It allows you to keep a little pocket of disorganization without the spark of chaos. A necessary evil and a home for the perpetually troubled and troublesome trinket. Just keep it contained, and keep it small, or it will threaten to tip you backwards into the mess.

Your space can become a part of your organization system. Hang your life on your walls. Install some floating shelves (it’s not as hard as you think, even with your two left hands.) Create a space that forces you to return things to their homes lest it drive you mad from inconvenience.

In molding your space to your system, you will find your votives. The items that allow you to pray at the altar of organization. Allow push pins and binder clips to become the body and blood of your new martyr. Perform your organizational prayer with the items that suit you. Once you find these, keep them stocked, and in their own special home.

Finally, know in your heart that an organized space is not always a tidy one. Do not strive for the unrealistic standards portrayed in the media. Eventually, you will settle on your own unique system. Or maybe not. I’m not your mother.

Granted, my bicycle commute is possibly one of the most idyllic in America. Almost entirely on a designated path along a river, only on a road for the final ~30 yards. This wasn’t on accident though. I chose my apartment exclusively because of the proximity and pleasantness of the commute, and likely paid extra for it. That was a non-negotiable part of my housing choice.

I did this every day, rain or shine, snow or sleet, and I think some of my favorite days were the ones with the worst weather. A few highlights:

Drenching rain in a t-shirt soaked to the bone, passing a similarly dressed runner absolutely beaming the same way I was as my music blasted in my ears and I sprinted the full 2 miles.

A late freeze in January with temperatures in the teens and a thin layer of ice on the trail. Any time I put too much force into the pedals my rear wheel would spin out. Fell three times during this freeze but wouldn’t trade the experience for a more pleasant one.

Getting passed by a full racing peloton on my casual ride to work, and completely gassing myself to almost keep up for a few minutes.

None of these experiences were advisable, but they were all fulfilling, enjoyable, and mine.