Listen. I’ve seen things. I’ve seen a man in a tweed waistcoat hold a ceramic frog and weep. I’ve seen a woman’s soul leave her body as she surrendered a Tupperware lid from 1987. This is the world of Sort Your Life Out, the BBC’s answer to the horror of having too many things you forgot you owned. Now, in a ‘developing’ report so urgent it could only be delivered by a news outlet that also covers celebrity pumpkin carving, the show’s sages have revealed the top cluttering mistakes. Brace yourselves. Or, more accurately, brace your storage solutions.
Mistake Number One: ‘Holding onto things out of guilt.’ Yes, the emotional baggage of a gravy boat from a great-aunt who once pinched your cheek and called you ‘porky.’ The show’s experts, a triumvirate of order so terrifying they make Marie Kondo look like a hoarder with a heart, demand you ask: does it spark joy? Does it provide function? Or is it just a monument to someone else’s taste? Their solution is a bin bag and a stiff upper lip. I propose a better one: a bonfire and a bottle of gin. But I digress.
Mistake Number Two: ‘Not having a designated home for everything.’ The horror! The chaos! This is the sort of language that gets people sectioned. According to these masters of the universe, a pair of scissors should live in a drawer with other scissors. A pen should live in a pot with other pens. And a soul should live in a state of permanent anxiety about where to put the egg timer. Why? Because if everything has a place, they claim, you’ll never lose anything. Except your mind. Which they will then charge you to reorganise.
Mistake Number Three: ‘Keeping things just in case.’ Ah, the ‘just in case’ fallacy! The broken toaster that will be fixed ‘one day.’ The trousers you might fit into ‘after Christmas.’ The bottle of vinegar you bought for a science experiment you never did. This is the detritus of procrastination, the bric-a-brac of hope. The experts say: throw it away. But what if the zombie apocalypse comes and I need to defend my home with a rusty bike pump? What if I suddenly need to combine vinegar and bicarbonate of soda to create a volcano in my kitchen? The government isn’t prepared for that. But my ‘just in case’ pile is.
Mistake Number Four: ‘Buying organisational products to solve the problem.’ This is the meta-mistake. The act of tidying your tidying. You buy a box to put your boxes in. Then you buy a box for that box. And then you die under a mountain of storage containers shaped like Swedish furniture. The experts say: stop buying stuff. Instead, rehome, repurpose, or recycle. I say: start a museum. Call it ‘The British History of Buying Things You Don’t Need.’ Charge admission. Profit.
In conclusion, Sort Your Life Out is the televised equivalent of a parent shouting ‘tidy your room’ for six hours. It’s a fascist regime of order, a police state of possessions. But I suppose it’s better than the alternative: living in a house that looks like a charity shop vomited. Still, I’ll hold onto my pile of old newspapers, thank you very much. They might be good for something. Like rolling up and hitting a person from the BBC if they come near my frog collection.
