Laziness or Catch-22?

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I consider myself a perfectionist. I like to have everything in order, tidy, clean. But I am hopeless at keeping my own possessions in this state. I often have a feeling of "can't be bothered" when it comes to tidying up my things. On the other hand, I feel compelled to tidy up other people's things.

I'm wondering if others feel this way. I don't know if the reason I don't keep my own things in order is because I am lazy, or because I feel that it can never be perfect enough so "why bother". I leave things in disarray yet it really gets to me that I do.

Does this ring any bells with anyone? Which do you put it down to?

I hate mess - if my desk isn't tidy and really neatly organized then I feel like I can't function or think straight, and feel very on edge when the room is a tip. But I am terrible at keeping things tidy - I lack any motivation to clean up or do housework, and I can't vac up because the noise really upsets me. My partner is always nagging me about not keeping the house clean or leaving things lying around, but I can't help myself. I don't think I'm lazy, just very poorly motivated especially when I'm feeling depressed. So I just don't know.

Oh wow that's just like me
I do everything at exactly the same time, and everything needs to stay the same, and that includes to state of my bedroom. It's usually an absolute tip, but it's been that way for years and I can't imagine it being any different. Once, when my mum moved a pile of videos in my room, I noticed as soon as I walked in and had a mini-meltdown, locked myself in my room and put everything back where it was.
I tidy up all mess except mine. It's weird...

I'm not neat - just I know where everything is and it's in its place and woe to s/he who touches or moves it. I'm 52 and my mother hasn't figure that out yet...... subject of many a tiff.

H.

Yeah this is pretty much exactly how it is, with my desk and room.

For me, anything that's in a mess is not in the right place. It's just in a mess

Often when I go on big tidying missions, I get frustrated that things don't fit as neatly in place as I want them to, or I can't find a place for some awkward object, and I think that's part of the reason why I tend not to bother to do it regularly.

You just described my approach to life exactly.

gosh i feel i am in most excellent company
i wonder if anybody else does this- when i am picking up my weekly sundries at walmart, i am stopped in my tracks if i see an article or product left on the floor- i cannot proceed until i have put the thing back where it belongs, even though i don't work there. i just can't stand the sight and even thought of somebody being so rude as to pull something out and just leave it on the floor. but at home it is the exact opposite.

I am on the same boat as this statement.

I'm also in that boat and it really irritates my family.

H.

Sounds familiar. My bedroom is a disaster, and my desk an apocalypse unto itself, but whenever I begin a project (of any kind) everything has to be approached methodically and the result perfected.



In my case it's because I feel like I've already done it before, so I shouldn't have to do it again. To keep doing something over, and over, and over for no reason but to maintain what already exists becomes a source of frustration and despair - I feel like Sisyphus when forced to do things like that. So usually I avoid maintenance tasks, and only clean up when there is some direct rationale for it - i.e., visitors, need to get organized for some reason, or I just randomly decide that it's time to clean up. But there is no continuous desire for a clean and orderly environment, I really don't care.



Not me. I tend to feel like an interloper in other people's spaces, so I try to have minimal impact unless they ask me. But then again, if someone does ask me to clean up their stuff for them, I tend to enjoy it a lot more than if they asked me to clean up my own stuff - provided the "stuff" in question consists of objects to be organized, and not messes of garbage.

I was talking about this with my daughter's occupational therapist just last week. She was telling me that this is very, very common in people with Asperger's. She said it was because lots of people with Asperger's have trouble with the 'spark' that gets them going. It's more of a problem in their own space because being in someone else's space can be enough of a spark in itself.

I like to keep things where i can quickly find them, not put in drawers. In my rooms it's not always tidy and put away. I cannot stare at an empty desk, there has to be something i later put onto it, something i use more often. It's more of a optimised access approach, why put things away if i can see it and reach it on the table.

But if i start cleaning, i really get obsessed with it, once i get going, i clean EVERYTHING. I keep my things and rooms clean, but not put out of sight.

Thanks MKB, very interesting. That also kind of fits with this:


When tidying up other people's things, it is probably going to be the first time you have dealt with these particular objects, so there's a special drive to want to get stuck into it. I realise Gnomon doesn't really feel this way, but it may explain why some do.

i am glad you put this in sensible words, it is what i have long felt but didn't have the words to express.

Not at all inclined to clean up someone else's mess, and I have to have things clean and orderly in my own environment or I can't think straight or work on other projects effectively, until I do.

I have a similar problem, but I figured out why I do this, maybe it will help you.
What happens is: because of my executive planning issues, I dont pick up my mess right after I make them, often also because of attention shortage too. Then the mess gets to be too overwhelming visually to deal with because of sensory issues and I get confused, overwhelmed and then I just give up on trying to clean it up, unless forced to by others.
The only solution I have found for this is become a minimalist, the less stuff you have, the less oppertunity you have to make a mess with it.

Of course the perfectionist thing could also add another layer of complexity to this dilemia,

Be good to yourself and the less you punish yourself the more this perfectionistic apathy will resolve itself. Like a child that has been too harshly punished by adults, you can develop an internal oppositional-defiant behavior against yourself. Kinda weird, but it can happen if you are too hard on yourself. Listen to the way you talk to yourself. Do you say things to yourself that you would never say to an enemy? Do you verbally abuse yourself? If so, you need to be kinder to yourself, and this behavior will disolve. Often folks who have been treated harshly by adults as a kid are often self-abusive continuing the abuse long after the child-adult relationship dynamic is over. You will find that some of the same things that adult told you, you will continue to tell yourself. This is how abuse continues to effect a person long after the abuse is over.

So If you think you have never been abused by your parents in any way, teachers and relatives often can cause this behavior. The key is to identify the abuser, and to confront the continued self-abuse by identifying the things that person said and how that relates to what you tell yourself. Being kind to yourself takes practice, so you have to be willing to forgive yourself for your mistakes and becoming a friend to yourself, not an enemy. From what I have seen, perfectionism is often rooted out of unrealistic expectations placed on a person when they were a child...this often continues in the form of self-abuse.

I hope this gives you some insight and some answers as to why you do this.
let me know what you think.