The math of making a mess:

[quarky]

Sometimes, when I get up in the morning, my house looks like Texans had come in the night and partied in it, while I was sleeping.

Bringing it back to order; doing the dishes, sweeping the floor, returning items from point "B" back to point "A", where they belong, seems tedious and demanding, energy-wise.

Its like work! Real work!
Yet, trashing the place never feels like work. Stuff simply gets strewn about, as though it required no effort from us.

Lately, when i look at the mess, and forgive the imaginary Texans, I marvel at the amount of 'toil' I must have done to achieve such dis-organization...and I wonder if it wasn't just as much work, or even more, than the daunting task of returning it to its rightful state of 'organized'.

I'm not exactly sure about this, but I suspect that its harder to make a big mess than it is to clean it up. Thermodynamics-wise.

This thread does not apply for lucky, disgusting bachelors that never need to have the disciplined order in the first place.
If my old lady dumped me, for instance, I would likely never need to 'make the bed' again. I could manage a full year before needing to sweep the floor; I would frankly, never wash the windows.

Is there some sort of algorithm that might get to the crux of my query?

 

[gabeygoat]

I have no idea, but I love the premise.

 

[dafydd]

Apply my late mam's maxims, a place for everything and everything in its place, and when you finish using something put it back in its place straight away. I follow these simple rules and it makes life a lot easier.

 

[quarky]

I have no idea, but I love the premise.

You don't happen to be a disgusting bachelor, by any chance?

 

[dafydd]

In my younger days I found that girl's places were a lot more untidy and tacky than guy's places. There was one flat in the Uplands in Swansea that was shared by some female student teachers that was a health hazard. A flat shared by some student nurses in Merthyr Tydfil comes to mind too.

 

[quarky]

Apply my late mam's maxims, a place for everything and everything in its place, and when you finish using something put it back in its place straight away. I follow these simple rules and it makes life a lot easier.

I totally hear that, and I can gladly manage it when I live alone.
But when I hook up with someone, i.e., get married or something, my sensible approach to order, and my reasonable disdain for pointless cleaning, come under the gun. Suddenly, I'm a Nazi.

So I let go. And I don't know where my socket wrenches are.
All the silver-ware is in a mixed heap in a drawer. Going solo, not only are the 3 types in separate columns, I only have one of each.

Bring in one more person, and, suddenly, you need at least 20 forks; 30 spoons; 432.5 coffee cups, and so forth.
Now it sounds like I'm bitching about women.
I don't know why, or even if, one woman needs so many coffee cups.
It could be anecdotal. All the women I've lived with were extraordinarily chaotic, while also demanding a very high degree of organization.

Hence, a design that demands massive amounts of housework.
Or worse, guilt for not doing it.

Is there a conspiracy in this, having to do with nurturing instinct?
Do we make messes for the sake of cleaning them up?
Do we have chaotic systems for the sake of teaching kids responsibility?
And if we didn't have chaotic systems, there would be no responsibility to teach? No need for authority?

Have we invented a way to need to do house-work?
In 1965, I had a girlfriend that had to spend 2 hours/day on her hair-do.
I, of course, would have liked her hair better if she'd just let it go.

Is there something about us that seeks out meaningless toil, as if its some sort of moral imperative?

Have I gone past the seeking of an algorithm?
Should this be moved to R&P?

After that consciousness thread, I'm not sure what is science and what is not. No way I'm going to the humor forum, though.
There's nothing less funny than trying to be funny, and I'm trying to be science-like here.

 

[dafydd]

I totally hear that, and I can gladly manage it when I live alone.
But when I hook up with someone, i.e., get married or something, my sensible approach to order, and my reasonable disdain for pointless cleaning, come under the gun. Suddenly, I'm a Nazi.

So I let go. And I don't know where my socket wrenches are.
All the silver-ware is in a mixed heap in a drawer. Going solo, not only are the 3 types in separate columns, I only have one of each.

Bring in one more person, and, suddenly, you need at least 20 forks; 30 spoons; 432.5 coffee cups, and so forth.
Now it sounds like I'm bitching about women.
I don't know why, or even if, one woman needs so many coffee cups.
It could be anecdotal. All the women I've lived with were extraordinarily chaotic, while also demanding a very high degree of organization.

Hence, a design that demands massive amounts of housework.
Or worse, guilt for not doing it.

I hear you!

 

[marplots]

It's psychological. Order is not additive nor cumulative in the same way messes are.

Suppose you have a total of a hundred of forks, knives, spoons and dishes. Dirty up a set of 5 (fork, knife, spoon and two plates) and leave them laying around. Your experience is one of "not tidy" when the numbers say your place is still 95% organized (all the stuff still hidden away in the cupboard and silverware drawer).

Change your metric, change your perceptions, get peace of mind.

 

[quarky]

It's psychological. Order is not additive nor cumulative in the same way messes are.

Suppose you have a total of a hundred of forks, knives, spoons and dishes. Dirty up a set of 5 (fork, knife, spoon and two plates) and leave them laying around. Your experience is one of "not tidy" when the numbers say your place is still 95% organized (all the stuff still hidden away in the cupboard and silverware drawer).

Change your metric, change your perceptions, get peace of mind.

I like that.
95% organized.
It makes total sense.




So, you live alone, right?

 

[CelticRose]

Apply my late mam's maxims, a place for everything and everything in its place, and when you finish using something put it back in its place straight away. I follow these simple rules and it makes life a lot easier.

This. It also helps to have the place for an item be near where you actually use it. If you use something downstairs and its place is upstairs you're 1) wasting energy transporting the thing back and forth and 2) less likely to put it away when you're done with it.

Is there something about us that seeks out meaningless toil, as if its some sort of moral imperative?

It's society. People are told on a daily basis that things need to be a certain way. Many people don't have the courage to overcome the peer pressure, so they'll do things just because "that's the way we've always done it" or "that's what everyone else does".

 

[marplots]

I like that.
95% organized.
It makes total sense.

So, you live alone, right?

Nope
I do not practice what I preach. My wife and I have a system. We don't say anything about it, but let piles of "mess" build up. Eventually, one of us breaks and that person starts the clean up cycle. The other person, provisionally designated the winner, then joins in and we git' er done.

The result of this process is that, on average, our place is pretty messy.

 

[quarky]

Nope
I do not practice what I preach. My wife and I have a system. We don't say anything about it, but let piles of "mess" build up. Eventually, one of us breaks and that person starts the clean up cycle. The other person, provisionally designated the winner, then joins in and we git' er done.

The result of this process is that, on average, our place is pretty messy.

You didn't need to confess that.

(Massive respect, btw. Give her a hug tonight, from quarky. She probably remembers me from that crazy night.)


Not to be nozy, but that person that 'eventually breaks'?

Its always her, right?

(Just checking in on the state of maleness.)

 

[Horatius]

It's not an issue of work, so much as it is power. You probably do a similar amount of work, but because you're cleaning for a shorter period of time than you're making the mess, the power required is higher. I suspect humans find higher power more tiring/annoying/whatever than absolute values of work done.

 

[quarky]

It's not an issue of work, so much as it is power. You probably do a similar amount of work, but because you're cleaning for a shorter period of time than you're making the mess, the power required is higher. I suspect humans find higher power more tiring/annoying/whatever than absolute values of work done.

Fascinating.

Any guess why we're (evidently) unaware of the amount of work involved in trashing the place, yet so painfully aware of the time spent returning it to order?

And might this quazi-half-baked hypothesis explain anything about the human condition, and our apparent messy relationship with the bio-sphere, in general?

(I ask this question solely for the sake of the o.p. being sciency)

I wouldn't know science if it bit me in the ass, yet I know a brown recluse spider when I see one.

Hopefully, photos of my necrotic ass-flesh won't be necessary to keep this conversation firmly rooted in the science forum.

 

[Roboramma]

It's not an issue of work, so much as it is power. You probably do a similar amount of work, but because you're cleaning for a shorter period of time than you're making the mess, the power required is higher. I suspect humans find higher power more tiring/annoying/whatever than absolute values of work done.

Good point . Several years ago I lived alone but had a girlfriend who lived in a different city. She'd come and stay at my place for a few days/month.

This situation meant that I cleaned my place once/month. "cleaned" here means more than washing the floors and windows: I'm talking about doing the laundry, washing dishes, throwing out trash, etc. The rest of the month I'd wash a dish if I needed to use it. I'd throw out trash only if I got a fruit f¬y infestation (it happened from time to time, but if I took out the trash, they'd a¬¬ die in a day or two). I probably did laundry more than once/month, but I don't think much more.

Anyway, that monthly cleaning was much less pleasant than it's equivalent in daily chores would have been.

I now live with my girl, but more importantly we have an ayi who comes every day and cleans our place for 1 hour. This is a very good thing.

 

[casebro]

I get a greater sense of accomplishment when I need the shovel it clean the house.

 

[SezMe]

Is there some sort of algorithm that might get to the crux of my query?

Of course.

 

[quarky]

Good point . Several years ago I lived alone but had a girlfriend who lived in a different city. She'd come and stay at my place for a few days/month.

This situation meant that I cleaned my place once/month. "cleaned" here means more than washing the floors and windows: I'm talking about doing the laundry, washing dishes, throwing out trash, etc. The rest of the month I'd wash a dish if I needed to use it. I'd throw out trash only if I got a fruit f¬y infestation (it happened from time to time, but if I took out the trash, they'd a¬¬ die in a day or two). I probably did laundry more than once/month, but I don't think much more.

Anyway, that monthly cleaning was much less pleasant than it's equivalent in daily chores would have been.

I now live with my girl, but more importantly we have an ayi who comes every day and cleans our place for 1 hour. This is a very good thing.

Maybe its my fondness for genetics, but I've never found fruit-flies to be problematic. My various gal-pals have.

What's up with that?

I mean, fruit flies don't even bite.

You've come the closest to quantifying the energy spent making the mess, vs/ removing it. If my reading is correct, you make an hour's worth of messiness/day.

Yet, getting paid to do the un-mess dance offers some gratification that might be more controversial otherwise.

Without that incentive, I suspect that it could escalate to 2 hrs/day.

Ever try to get a kid to clean up their room?
As a factor of time in respect to a professional doing the same job?

That same kid, if making the mess was a financial currency of some sort; as if all ft. lbs. of energy expended were equivalent, they would have some serious fiduciary gusto.

Is this entropy, rearing its ugly 2nd law violence upon us?
Or, am I merely being a crack-pot?

I honestly don't know anymore.

 

[Jim_MDP]

My problem with sharing a house with my sister and BIL, is they create and then leave a sticky mess EVERY time they do anything in the kitchen, eat at the table or set a cup down.

And they actually use an average of ~7 coffee/tea mugs between them... a day. How?

My way is, don't make a mess, but if I do make a mess... I clean the mess, so I don't have to do it later. I'm actually quite lazy, so this works best for me.

 

[jj]

That's entropy, man! Seriously, I don't know how that works, but I have the same experience almost daily.