“Mom was right—Make the bed!” by Pamela Bennett
Who has time to make the bed anymore?
Most people are in a mad dash in the morning to get out the door on time (or is that just me?) So it’s much easier to just shrug and use an “airing out the bed linens” excuse. That gem is actually backed up by scientists, who say pulling the covers back for at least an hour after you wake helps to remove moisture and discourage dust mites.
But let’s not go there. I’d rather not think about what’s in bed with me besides my nice, clean sheets.
Erma Bombeck famously said, “No-one ever died from an unmade bed.”
Psychologists also tell us that clutter and creativity often go hand in hand. So your messy desk actually could lead to creative and innovative thinking.
Albert Einstein was notorious for keeping a cluttered desk. He said, “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what then, is an empty desk a sign?”
When I worked in a newsroom, I worked at a desk filled with several precariously stacked piles of paper and newspapers, yet managed to churn out reams of copy on deadline.
Now I work primarily in a home office, so my desk across town in the newsroom is practically pristine. And every once in awhile, I neaten the piles on my desk at home, so it hopefully looks more industrious than messy.
But what about the rest of the house?
When I’m working on deadline, or trying to get a book chapter finished, housework falls by the wayside and before I know it, there are no clean dishes in the house and half my closet is hung over the bedroom mirror. The atmosphere in the house seems to get more and more chaotic and “hot spots” in my house like the kitchen table or the breakfast bar get more and more cluttered until things pop up there all by themselves.
I mean really–where did that banana peel come from? Did I really stand over the table, hungrily devour a banana and then not make it six feet to the trashcan under the sink? And when did I buy bananas?
Does clutter eventually lead to chaos or does it fuel creativity?
Health care professional and practicing psychologist Dr. Holly Parker said, “A systematic pattern of home neglect is really a form of self-neglect.”
Ouch. It’s not like I leave the house with bed hair. I like to think I pull myself together properly every day, even when I don’t have time to do the dishes.
In the journal Psychological Science, scientist Kathleen Vohs from the University of Minnesota studied the effects of order and disorder on socially desirable behaviors. Recruiting volunteers to work in either neat or messy rooms, she concluded that both environments led to desirable results.
She put some people in neat, orderly rooms to fill out questionnaires and others in messy rooms. They were then given the opportunity to donate privately to a charity—to help pay for toys and books to be given to needy children. As they left the rooms, they were offered an apple or a chocolate bar.
Vohs said people who worked in an orderly room were more generous in donating money and more likely to choose the apple.
Now I feel guilty for wanting the chocolate bar.
To test if a cluttered room affects creativity, she repeated the experiment, adding a creative question—specifically asking participants to come up with at least 10 or more uses for ping pong balls.
Volunteers who worked in the messy environment produced more “highly creative” uses for the ping pong balls than people working in the orderly rooms.
So if disorder inspires great ideas, why should I ever clean my house?
On the other hand, listen to what Naval Admiral William H. McRaven, ninth commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, said in May during a commencement speech at The University of Texas at Austin.
He started out describing his basic SEAL training, where instructors would show up at the barracks first thing in the morning to inspect beds.
“If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack—rack—that’s Navy talk for bed,” he said. “It was a simple task—mundane at best. But every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. It seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that we were aspiring to be real warriors, tough battle-hardened SEALs—but the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over.”
McRaven said if you make your bed every morning, “you will have accomplished the first task of the day.”
“It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another,” he said.
He said if you can’t do the little things right, how can you do the big things right?
“If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed,” he said.
See—just like Mom.
I was a messy teenager. In the room I shared with my twin sister, my side of the room would have an unmade bed with half the contents of my closet piled on it. (Yes, Mother, I know you remember this, because you usually made the bed after I left for school and hung up the clothes!)
So why bother to make the bed as an adult? Because just as the Admiral said, making the bed leads to hanging up my clothes. After all, the bed looks so nice—why not hang up the clothes right away from the dryer instead of dumping them on the bed to deal with later?
Hanging up the clothes leads to doing the dishes, then vacuuming, then watering my hundred-plus houseplants. (Yes, I live in a jungle—I need green, living things around me during Ohio’s long cold winters!)
The days when I think I’m too busy to make the bed, nothing seems to get done, because I seem to need that progression of tasks to keep me organized. And I always feel more creative and more likely to work on the book if my personal world is in some kind of order.
So the moral of this story is….listen to your mother.
And—Don’t forget to make your bed!
Pam that sure reminds me always asking you to make the bed and clean your room. One day you decided to clean your room and it was so cluttered and I didn’t think you would ever clean it up.
After you left for school I Would go in your room and clean it.
Your sister Janet was much better at hanging up her clothes. I myself make my bed as soon as I get up in the morning. I don’t like to get up and find dishes in the sink. Guess that never did rub off on you. Oh well guess that never did rub off on you but you are still a great gal and love you both.
Mom
Thanks, Mother–love you too! Yes, I wish I had inherited your organization skills, but I keep trying and believe it or not, I made my bed this morning, although there are definitely dishes in my sink…Thanks for reading our blogs!
Yes… for some unexplainable and highly illogical reason, my day goes better when I make the bed. I don’t get it either.
Yes, mine too–when I forget to make the bed, not much else seems to get done that day either! Thanks for reading this, Stephany.