A concept from physics called negentropy could help your life run smoother
phys.org
phys.org
Daughter: Daddy, why do things get in a muddle? Father: What do you mean? Things? Muddle? D: Well, people spend a lot of time tidying things, but they never seem to spend time muddling them. Things just seem to get in a muddle by themselves. And then people have to tidy them up again. F: But do your things get in a muddle if you don’t touch them? D: No—not if nobody touches them. But if you touch them—or if anybody touches them—they get in a muddle and it’s a worse muddle if it isn’t me. F: Yes—that’s why I try to keep you from touching the things on my desk. Because my things get in a worse muddle if they are touched by somebody who isn’t me. D: But do people always muddle other people’s things? Why do they, Daddy? F: Now, wait a minute. It’s not so simple. First of all, what do you mean by a muddle? D: I mean—so I can’t find things, and so it looks all muddled up. The way it is when nothing is straight F: Well, but are you sure you mean the same thing by muddle that anybody else would mean? D: But, Daddy, I’m sure I do—because I’m not a very tidy person and if I say things are in a muddle, then I’m sure everybody else would agree with me. F: All right—but do you think you mean the same thing by “tidy” that. other people would? If your mummy makes your things tidy, do you know where to find them? D: Hmm… sometimes—because, you see, I know where she puts things when she tidies up F: Yes, I try to keep her away from tidying my desk, too. I’m sure that she and I don’t mean the same thing by “tidy.” D: Daddy, do you and I mean the same thing by “tidy?” F: I doubt it, my dear—I doubt it.
http://www.av8n.com/physics/thermo/entropy.html#sec-s-not-kn...
(However, it is perhaps useful to separate them into two concepts when teaching the 19th century thermodynamics, since it would be hard to avoid questions about the subjectivity of information ?)
In terms of actual energy usage, the examples don't make sense to me. It doesn't take 3x as much energy to pick up 3 socks from the floor, or wipe a counter that is 3x as dirty, so if you actually want to conserve energy you should let something get to its maximum-acceptable dirty state before cleaning/tidying.
If you have three socks that are all on top of eachother, it takes essentially the same effort to grab all 3.
If you have three socks that are strewn across the room, it might take more than 3x the energy because you also have to move inbetween the socks.
If you scale this up to large levels, the concept of negentropy is "daily life application" terms is "will this task have any corresponding or seemingly unrelated tasks that will be made easier or more difficult by doing this, or in what order I do this relative to them?" and if so, "how can I adjust the order or process of these tasks to optimize the flow?"
In the sock situation, two options are: wait until there are far mor socks, or also vacuum at the same time since you already need to bend over for vacuuming.
Or maybe a centaur with one foot open to the air…
This is the point where I say "uh oh".
“Ye olde organically-evolved peasant villages tended to be complicated confusions of everybody trying to raise fifty different crops at the same time on awkwardly shaped cramped parcels of land. Modern scientific rationalists came up with a better idea: giant collective mechanized farms growing purpose-bred high-yield crops and arranged in (say it with me) evenly-spaced rectangular grids.”
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/16/book-review-seeing-lik...
Like what insight is entropy or negentropy providing into this situation? If you hadn't heard of negrntropy would you be under the mistaken impression that your apartment was going to clean itself?
There are a lot of people that are 'organized' yet are unhappy or tired out because of the energy expenditure used to maintain that state of organization is not sustainable. Being able to adapt by removing high energy/low reward expenditures from your routine when needed it a method to avoid burnout.
That you have executive power to change things in your job.
Sure in my personal life I already started being much more wary of what drains my energy and started gradually changing this or that, to very encouraging results. And I love it.
But when it comes to environments you can't change at their core, other strategies are needed.
Also the general tone of the article rings kind of hollow since it sounds like "hustle hard and don't let up", which really is not helping its otherwise good message.
Indexes in a database take processing power and IOPS to generate, more than dumping it on the disk without an index. Much in the same way, taking your socks and putting them in a drawer takes more energy than dropping them at some random distance between the dryer and the drawer. But when it comes to finding the socks again use of the index (drawer) can save orders of magnitude more energy and time. In someone else's house its going to take far less information if they can point you at a particular drawer rather than you performing an exhaustive search.
There is a direct correlation here, but I won't say it's obvious as the idea that we live in an entropy driven world is a rather recent human discovery when looked at cross human history.
As a thought experiment, imagine your house is fully organized, every sock in its draw. However there is garbage strewn all over the floor and everything is dirty. Would that be an energizing environment for you? Why not, after all, you can easily describe where everything of interest is, the house is just dirty not cluttered.
Any desired and pleasant state (clean/uncluttered/...) of the surroundings which has to be willfully (and through expenditure of energy/work) defended against inevitable spontaneous deterioration is really a victim of the exact same effect: almost all non-living things constantly deteriorate (atoms moving from where they were purposefully put to make things work to unintended places), with only few exceptions. Such as things that develop patina, but that too is really only a certain state of things on their way towards defect.
Let's use an extreme example just to bring the point home.
You're baking and you need a cup of sugar. Which of the following takes less energy.
1. Going to the sugar bin and scooping a single cup of sugar from it.
2. Having sugar particles spread chaotically across your house and being forced to collect them haphazardly until you have a cup of sugar.
State 1 requires for less information to describe the state, and thermodynamics teaches us that information=energy. A more real life example here would be telling a child to go put on their red socks. If all socks are kept in the sock drawer then you can compress color out of the information you need to keep track of to know where socks are, in fact you only need one location state kept. But instead of the kids room is a mess they'll either have to remember that one red sock is under the bed or begin an exhaustive search (check bathroom floor, check closet, finally check under bed) which is highly energy intensive and generally takes far longer, aggravating parents in a hurry.
The goal is to compound the benefits of good decisions.