simplify

It recently occurred to me that through the course of my life I have devoted way too much time to socks.  Yes, socks.

No, I don’t have some weird sock fetish or a creepy sock col­lec­tion, but rather I have spent count­less min­utes here and there sift­ing through laun­dry bas­kets, rum­mag­ing through draw­ers, and search­ing aim­lessly for matches to my var­i­ous socks.  Brown socks, blue socks, black socks, run­ning socks, tube socks, argyle socks, each requir­ing orga­ni­za­tion in my dresser and each requir­ing a match to be use­ful.  Every dif­fer­ent type of pair added to the mix adds an expo­nen­tial level of com­plex­ity to the process of sort­ing, match­ing, and putting away.

Upon some reflec­tion, I have real­ized that I don’t care enough about socks to waste time on things like:

• think­ing about which is the right pair to wear.
• won­der­ing if the pair of socks I grab in the dimly lit morn­ing actu­ally matches.
• sort­ing through laun­dry bas­kets to find my socks and match them up with one another.
• main­tain­ing a drawer of orphan socks wait­ing for their match to return from the abyss of the dryer.
• iden­ti­fy­ing matches to dam­aged socks that need to be disposed.

Hav­ing a choice of socks is not some­thing that mat­ters to me.  When it comes to socks, I want sim­plic­ity, speed, and util­ity, not choice — hence I recently reduced my choices — black dress and white run­ning socks.   Any­thing that devi­ated from the specs was deliv­ered to the rag pile in the garage.

I started by retir­ing all exist­ing socks to the rag pile.  It had been a while since I had got­ten rid of any socks, so they were due to be replaced any­way.  By start­ing fresh, I made it easy to imple­ment my new sys­tem of sim­plic­ity.   I then went to Tar­get and bought a 10 pack of Hanes black dress socks and 2 six packs of Hanes low cut run­ning socks.  Inven­tory in place, I then moved for­ward with my sim­ple system.

This may sound silly, but it makes a dif­fer­ence.  Rather than mul­ti­ple types of white socks, black socks, and all sorts of other vari­eties, I stan­dard­ized to work socks and exer­cise socks.  That easy.  No more choices.  Much less match­ing.  A lit­tle stress removed and a life regained.

Now, I never have more than one orphan sock, because if two go miss­ing I am sim­ply down to 9 pair.  That easy.  At the end of the year, I will con­vert them all to rags and start over.

This is also help­ful when get­ting dressed in a dimly lit room early in the morn­ing, while oth­ers are sleep­ing.  No guess­ing if the socks match or if they are black, brown, or blue.  Grab a pair and go.  I actu­ally went as far as to orga­nize my draw­ers by activ­ity to fur­ther sim­plify things.  I have a work drawer with box­ers, under­shirts, and black socks, and I have an exer­cise drawer with run­ning shorts, briefs, run­ning shirts, and my white socks — fur­ther sim­pli­fy­ing the putting away and putting back on of my laundry.

Some­times life is made bet­ter by elim­i­nat­ing choices.  I guess the say­ing would be “some­times less is more.”   If you love socks, than this sys­tem is a hor­ri­ble idea for you.   Socks is not really the point.  The idea is just to fig­ure out what mat­ters and sim­plify the rest.  This will not add seven years to my life, but does add a few min­utes here and there.  More impor­tantly it sim­pli­fies some­thing that is unim­por­tant to me, sav­ing time and atten­tion for the things that are.

What silly life­hacks do you use to sim­plify your life?