Cleaning a room is one of those things that almost everyone learns, but we all learn differently, and we all do differently. You would think that by the time we’re adults, we’ve done it enough that there’s barely a “how” to even think about. However, sometimes I, like this past weekend, stand in a messy room and think of 10 other things I’d rather do. This leads to excuses like “I don’t even know where to start” which then sound more plausible and, as the mess’s existence proves, this argument wins and I’m off to do one of those 10 things.
This time, being me, my mind, possibly inspired by one of Boston Dynamics’ recent videos, wanders to think how I’d program a robot to do it. So I come up with a program.
This program has a couple overarching rules. First, you can’t go backwards. When you finish cleaning one part you can’t put anything else there. You can stash forwards but not backwards. Second, you can’t go backwards into another room either, no putting stuff on the floor of the hallway. Last, anything you touch that doesn’t belong in the room can’t stay in the room.
- Floor. Get everything off it. Doesn’t matter where you put it, just follow the constraints. We do this first because now we can walk around and should be able to reach pretty much everything.
- Seating. Clear it. As you progress, things you need to deal with tend to get smaller, so you might want to sit down and sort them out. Or just take a break.
- Beds. Clear them. It’s tempting to pile stuff here, but you don’t want to sleep on the floor, and the steps after this aren’t going to be very comfortable either.
- Surfaces. Desks, benches, counters. This is harder because some stuff actually lives here—a lamp, a project, whatever. Sort what belongs from what just landed there.
- Shelves. Open cabinets too. The pace slows but victory is close. Organize what stays, remove what doesn’t. After this step the room will look clean.
- Drawers. Closets, cabinets with doors. Deep clean territory. Sort through everything: what belongs, what doesn’t, what’s just been hiding. We’re getting nitpicky and the distractions are making a stronger case for your time, but it’s going to be worth it. Your future self will thank you.
OK, but wait, there are two shelves, which one first? At each step, if there are choices to be made, you work around the room counterclockwise from the main entry point, bottom to top. Why? Because I said so. The whole point of this program is to be deterministic and remove those decisions that allow other things to creep in. Remember, you’re a robot.
So you just read a blog post by an (alleged) adult, telling other adults in excessive and deterministic detail how to do something we’ve all been doing since childhood. If you’re an engineer like me you might feel seen. If you’re not an engineer you might be looking like the Nick Cannon meme and are thinking “who thinks like this?” Fair. I think about that gap a lot, how some minds work so differently that it’s hard to even understand, much less empathize, and that’s what originally seeded this post, but this bit emerged. More on that another time.
Have you ever “programmed” a task we’re just supposed to know how to do?