In the 1960s, 653 children were given a marshmallow by psychology researchers at Stanford University. The children were told that they could eat the marshmallow right away, or they could wait 15 minutes to eat it and receive a second marshmallow as a reward.
Based on how they performed in the experiment, they were rated on a scale from low delayers (kids who ate the marshmallow instantly) to high delayers (kids who waited the 15 minutes and received a second marshmallow). Over the next 40 years, these children have been tracked by Stanford researchers. And, to many people’s surprise, there has been significant correlation between rates of drug abuse, S.A.T. scores, body-mass index, stress management, career success, and ability to maintain friendships to how the children performed on this simple marshmallow experiment.
Children who were high delayers were the ones to achieve more success in life than their low delayer classmates. In fact, a child “who could wait fifteen minutes had an S.A.T. score that was, on average, two hundred and ten points higher than that of the kid who could wait only thirty seconds.” According to the article “Don’t! The secret of self-control” in the May 18 issue of The New Yorker:
For decades, psychologists have focussed on raw intelligence as the most important variable when it comes to predicting success in life. [Walter] Mischel [the Stanford professor of psychology in charge of the experiment] argues that intelligence is largely at the mercy of self-control: even the smartest kids still need to do their homework. “What we’re really measuring with the marshmallows isn’t will power or self-control,” Mischel says. “It’s much more important than that. This task forces kids to find a way to make the situation work for them. They want the second marshmallow, but how can they get it? We can’t control the world, but we can control how we think about it.”
The article and research does point out that there were some students in the study who transformed from low delayers into high delayers over the course of 40 years. The scientists have since concluded that delaying gratification is a skill that can be learned, simply by practicing specific techniques (some are described in the article).
So what does this have to do with uncluttering? Good question. An essential component to maintaining an uncluttered life is having routines in place that keep the clutter out of your home and office and the self control and diligence to systematically complete the routines. These are routines to process mail, do daily chores, create meal plans, and process paperwork and actions as they come across your desk. Doing these not-so-fun tasks everyday ultimately pay off because you have more time and less stress in your life overall. Thirty minutes of chores and routines each week night gives you two free days on the weekend. You delay gratification for an even larger reward.
If you have difficulty maintaining routines to keep clutter out of your life, I recommend that you check out this article. You can learn and practice these skills so that you, too, can live a remarkable, uncluttered life. If you’re already a master at self control, the article still makes for a very fascinating read.