There is a meme that has been circulating among my peers, and it goes like this: the overlaid caption reads “Me in my early 20s vs now” and, in the first few seconds, a young man stands flailing his arms in a simulated nightclub, downing vodka shots. In the next scene, he’s sat primly on his living room sofa, in a cardigan, introducing all of his favourite frying pans. “I really like this one,” he smarms at the camera. “’Cause it’s non-sticky, and matches my favourite spatula.” Where is the lie though? ask my fellow elder millennials upon viewing (who, in turn and unprompted, volunteer their own favourite kitchen utensil). Is it the imposition of social distancing and isolation that is behind this complete and total embrace of our inner homebodies? Or perhaps it is just a coping mechanism for the modern age, where the chaos of living – with its new pandemic-related stressors and unpredictability – can be soothed by the balm of familiarity, where things work as they are meant to. During the height of the pandemic’s fifth wave, I managed to move into a new flat, eager to reset the physical and mental clutter of my life and mind. While case numbers compounded daily in the most horrifying way, I closed myself off and took satisfaction in whittling away belongings, while taking a new-found interest in organising something as simple as salt or sugar. As bodies piled up next to living patients in hospital wards, I found solace in perfectly aligning tins of pet food in smooth white plastic Ikea containers, and sachets of tea in crisp, matt steel tins. This was not apathy – far from it. But perhaps there is something to be said about organising your life and what it says about compartmentalising your feelings. Before the pandemic, we saw the rise of home organisation shows such as Tidying Up with Marie Kondo and Master the Mess (the precursor to Get Organized with The Home Edit ). Since 2020, there has been a curious trend, in South Korea in particular, of vloggers who document the ordinary details of keeping a simple, organised lifestyle – of fresh vegetables and fruits that are religiously cleaned, segmented and packed into Tupperware that always seems custom made to perfectly fit them; of bamboo bento boxes neatly filled with delicious rice rolls for lunch; of fridges and cabinets that appear as neatly arranged as a gallery, with every pickle, spice and condiment labelled and perfectly aligned. 25 chefs, from A to Y, who changed Hong Kong’s dining scene Among my favourites is Honeyjubu, a housewife who lives in Seoul. One of her most popular uploads, with eight million views since it was posted in April, is titled A diligent daily life that starts at five in the morning . In it, Honeyjubu – who remains anonymous throughout all of her videos, although early uploads also feature her girl-like voice-overs – fries up vegetable egg rolls and grills salmon for her husband’s lunchbox, grooms her fluffy dog and roasts a chicken for dinner, everything done with languid purpose. Less than a month after she uploaded this video, she gained the “Gold Play Button” from YouTube – a trophy awarded to vloggers who accumulate 1 million subscribers. Soon after my move, I became obsessed with Honeyjubu’s calm, helpful and cinematic tutorials, often set against a muted soundscape of gentle folk music and satisfying ASMR. Two other videos, at 5.2 million and 4.5 million views, respectively, reveal her true service to viewers – an uncanny ability to organise an array of foods (sugary doughnuts, buckets of pesto) bought in bulk from Costco, and tips on how to store fruits and vegetables to make them last longer. Slowly, I adopted a number of her useful techniques – my freezer has small stacks of frozen lemon slices (so long, withering half-lemons at the bottom of the produce drawer) ready to be flung into glasses of soda water. Whole watermelons, which used to take up prime real estate, are expertly sliced and stacked into glass containers, ready to be snacked upon or thrown into a blender with ice to quell the humid heat of a Hong Kong summer. Items have their space, and indeed their designated container. The psychology of organising, at least for me, started out as a way to wrest control of that which I could not change. These days, as the ritual becomes second nature, I feel more at ease, my mind clearer to focus on what genuinely requires my attention. My advice? When life gives you lemons, you can never have too many excellent containers to store them in.