FOR some people, like my sister’s boyfriend Dave, wearing a pair of odd socks is intentional. A style statement.

But if you ever see me in a non-matching pair, know this: I am not trying to spice up an outfit by adopting a jolly sartorial quirk. I have simply been left with no choice, because my underwear drawer is an absolute riot.

Every morning I wade through a tangle of tights – oh, there’s those earrings I thought I’d lost! – in an effort to assemble my base layer. A fancy bra is teamed with M&S granny pants, followed by one blue sock and one grey. I laugh as I size myself up in the mirror, remembering an old friend who said he’d never go out with a woman who didn’t wear matching undies (he has since moved to Canada, presumably in search of this elusive species). I know my mornings would be less stressful if I spent an evening playing matchmaker with the lost soles and introducing order to the chaos, but the very idea holds as much appeal as a night on the tiles with Jacob Rees-Mogg. And so the carry-on continues.

Marie Kondo I am not. And, increasingly, I feel like one of a vanishing few yet to have succumbed to the home organisation craze that was sparked – with joy, obviously – a few years ago by the Japanese tidying expert but has properly taken hold against the backdrop of the pandemic. While seemingly everyone else has divided their wardrobe into seasons and labelled their spice jars, I still have a box of cables that has followed me around for 15 years and a minidisc player I can’t bear to part with because it once soundtracked my walk to school.

Although I’m not partaking in it, I get vicarious pleasure from seeing others clear their lives of debris and detritus. My friends and I have become addicted in The Covid Years to shows such as The Home Edit, in which two professional declutterers organise the homes of Hollywood celebs. We eagerly anticipate the new series of Sort Your Life Out, a British take on the genre where Stacey Solomon helps families get rid of the junk they’ve accumulated and deposit the stuff they’re keeping into row upon row of categorised containers.

Whether I’m looking at my TV screen or my phone, I see people methodically sort, sift and streamline. A new crop of home organisation influencers on social media tell me the best way to fold my towels (not draped over a radiator, apparently), decant my toiletries and colour-code my Billy bookcase. I watch them in a semi-trance like I do cookery shows. “Huh. Good idea,” I say, lifting my coffee mug from the tottering pile of magazines which threaten to buckle the barely visible rack beneath them. “Maybe I’ll do that one day.”

That day has yet to arrive for me. Judging by the number of home organisation companies that have sprung up lately, though, it has come for everyone else. There are enough businesses in the UK dedicated to the art of cleaning and decluttering – and a corresponding consumer demand for them – that a few weeks ago saw the launch of The Clean and Tidy Home Show at Excel London, the first of its kind in the UK. Exhibitors included The Folding Lady, KonMari and Be More Organised. Most were based down south, but there are plenty in Scotland these days too. A few years ago, when writing a feature on the subject, I struggled to find companies here that specialised in decluttering. Now, a quick Google search pulls up several pages of them, from the Borders to Inverness.

I suppose it makes sense we would seek to instil orderliness in our living spaces at a time when we’ve been more closely confined to them. Especially when everything else around us has been thrown into visible disarray. We can’t control the pandemic, nor the political clown show accompanying it, but we can pour penne from a packet into a glass jar and slot it neatly into a cupboard, solid and segmented and contained. When everything outside feels overwhelming, it’s within our power to examine our immediate surroundings and discard what is surplus to requirements: the jeans that no longer fit, those blasted Gu dessert ramekins that “might come in handy one day” but never do.

It’s not just a coping mechanism or means of distraction but an activity that can reduce stress and anxiety. Studies have shown how inhabiting a cluttered environment can lead to an increase in cortisol production, while tidy spaces encourage a feeling of calm and can even, for some, contribute to a higher rate of productivity. So why can’t I pay heed to the science and sort my house out?

Time is a factor, of course. It is precious, and I am busy. If I find myself with some to spare, I want to spend it doing something I enjoy rather than facing up to the cupboard currently serving as a shrine to tote bags.

There’s also part of me that finds a certain comfort in clutter. I think about going to visit my grandparents when I was wee and finding endless adventure in their stacks of stuff. Devouring a stash of post-war Broons annuals; playing with my gran’s dusty old keyboard from her school teaching days; surveying the many trinkets my grandad collected – brass monkey ornaments, hand-carved cigarette boxes, a wooden rocking pig – which bore little monetary value but collectively were priceless because they represented who he was and the life he lived.

I don’t want to live in a sterile home where everything I own is labelled and tucked away in plastic boxes, as if I’m going to move out tomorrow. I always want the second drawer down in the kitchen to be a daily source of surprise, like Mary Poppins’ handbag.

When I die, you will know me through the bric-a-brac I’ve left behind. Just be sure to bury me in my odd socks, won’t you?

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