Empty Drawers Make Me Nervous
But not as nervous as when they're full
Friends,
First, Simple + Straightforward has seen a huge uptick in subscribers this week, thanks to the excellent Joshua Becker recommending one of my Medium articles to his million or so followers.
So if you’re a newbie here, I want to send out heartfelt thanks for joining our little community. I hope you love it here.
And let’s not forget those of you who have been with me for a while - you’re all heroes.
If you find value in this weekly letter, feel free to share with friends and family who you think might enjoy a dose of simplicity every Friday.
Let’s get to it.
On Monday, I leave Georgia (the country) for the wet, soggy lands of the UK. For two weeks I’ll be staying at my brother’s place with him, his wife, and his two kids, all of whom I adore.
My brother is the opposite of me. Where I find contentment in travel, he finds it at home. And where I find peace and tranquility in Minimalism, he is your archetypal Maximalist. He loves stuff.
We were deprived as children and he’s told me many times how he wants to give his kids more than we had. He has certainly come through on that promise - they have drawers, upon drawers, upon drawers of toys.
Because if there is something my brother’s house doesn’t lack, it’s storage. In my mind’s eye, I can see at least 21 drawers in the living room, a whole floor-to-ceiling storage solution in the dining room, and maybe 30 or so more cupboards and drawers in the kitchen.
ALL of them are brimming to the point of bursting.
It got me thinking about the problem with empty drawers.
Or more, the problem with the urge to fill the space we own. Because…
Empty drawers feel like unfulfilled potential
I mean, they’re not, but that’s how many of us feel, no?
I wrote recently about how Selling Sunset was my isolation go-to show. Millionaires showing other millionaires around multi-million dollar LA houses. It’s crass and gross and weirdly compelling.
One such house had a closet big enough to fit a one-bedroomed apartment inside. The real estate agents were going wild about this closet. I turned to my husband and commented
HA! Imagine that closet with our clothes in there. They’d not fill half a rail. What would we do with the rest of it?!
That’s the thing about this kind of lifestyle - he said.
It’s not just the big house, it’s what fills it. Filling the closet with clothes. Filling the five-car garage with five cars. Filling all the drawers.
He’s right. It’s why empty drawers make me feel weird. If I’ve bought a wardrobe or a sideboard because the room would feel ‘empty’ without it, I need to fill it, otherwise, I feel a bit stupid having bought it simply to fill an empty space. It wouldn’t be serving its purpose.
It’s how we’re taught to deal with space. We’re told we need to fill it, otherwise it could feel ‘sparse’ or ‘cold.’
Take the formal dining room. There are millions of them hiding away in suburbs across places like America, the UK, and Australia. And studies say they’re never used, families preferring to eat in the coziness of the kitchen or the lounge / den.
But you’d never not fill that dining room. It would always have the big table, the chairs, perhaps the sideboard.
Not filling the space would feel weird. And would be a really uncomfortable reminder that maybe some of us are living in spaces larger than we really need.
It’s like Parkinson’s Law, which states work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
Stuff expands so as to fill the space available.
Hence, my brother’s hundreds of filled-to-the-brim drawers.
Learning to love empty space (and not feeling weird about empty drawers)
The beauty of living in short-term rentals is that most places are simply furnished (aside from the occasional place where trinkets still reign supreme).
Right now I’m in a one-bed apartment whose entire furniture extends to a sofa, dining room table, 4 chairs, coffee table, storage unit, bed, one chest of drawers, and a couple of bedside tables.
It could feel sparse, but it doesn’t. It feels airy and light. It feels like headspace. It feels like peace.
Bonus point - the whole place only takes half an hour to clean, top to bottom.
Many of us crave space in our homes. It’s one of the reasons why the Scandanavian aesthetic remains universally popular, with its minimal designs, clean lines and clutterless spaces.
We want our homes to be calm oases, havens of peace, and tranquility, even if in reality they’re akin to chaotic jungles.
We want that with good reason. Our brains know that clutter = lack of focus, high anxiety levels, less sleep and more stress.
And to do that, we’ve got to learn to embrace the power of the empty drawer.
I wonder if my brother will let me empty one of his next week…perhaps he’ll not even notice.
Stuff I’ve done this week to embrace deep work
My programmer husband is in the throes of creating a new app that is seriously one of the best ideas I’ve ever heard. But for that, he needs peace and quiet. And we work in the same space. And I am easily distracted.
Luckily for him - and me - I’ve embraced deep work this week which has kept me focused, productive and quiet.
If you’ve not heard about it before, deep work is a phrase coined by Professor Cal Newport. It’s a state of mind where time flies, everything you do feels like magic and you’re completely focused and absorbed in the task in front of you.
It’s not an easy state to conjure, but I’ve been having some success this week through the following:
A good night’s sleep - at least 7.5 hours - so when I wake up, I’m filled with energy.
No electronic distractions. I turn off email, Whatsapp, and close all browser tabs.
A clean kitchen. Because I can’t work when there’s clutter hanging around.
Lyric-less music. Some people swear by binaural beats but I hate it. Old school 90s and 00s techno (on the commercial end, nothing too hardcore) or chill-out playlists work well for me.
Something to read
3 articles from my collection
Parents — We Don't Want (And Probably Can't Afford) to Inherit All Your Stuff
If Someone Gave You a Financial Do-Over, What Would You Do Differently?
3 of the best articles I’ve read this week
Mothers Under the Influence - Rootin' tootin' charcutin' (a Substack exploring the world of Instagram momfluencers)
The Action Cookbook Newsletter - Dad Sounds, Ranked (a slightly surreal, always funny Substack by Scott Hines)
Ian Sanders - It started with a marble: a life of writing things down (Medium)
As always, if you want to join Medium for $5 a month to gain access to my writing - and thousands of other incredible writers - you can do so via my referral link.
A madloba (thank you in Georgian) for reading. May your weekend be filled with fun, laughter, and happy moments.
Gaumarjos! (Cheers!)
Charlie