PhronesisCompulsive tidying is typically framed as a productivity virtue or, at worst, a quirky personality trait. We argue it is neither. Drawing on dynamical systems theory and clinical phenomenology, we formalize compulsive tidying as a wrong attractor — a self-reinforcing behavioral basin that mimics adaptive order-maintenance while systematically suppressing spontaneity, organic living, and the capacity for calibrated organized ease.
We define the ground state S^0 as calibrated organized ease: a condition in which environmental order is maintained proportionately, without affective urgency, and without foreclosing the possibility of productive disorder. Compulsive tidying represents displacement from S^0 driven by disorder-anxiety. We introduce displacement D() as a function of environmental entropy, and cumulative displacement = D()\,dt as a measure of chronic over-ordering.
We present nine formal propositions characterizing the order-override architecture, the spontaneity-suppression basin, and the return dynamics. Clinical and cultural implications are discussed, including connections to OCD, anxiety-driven control, perfectionism, and the KonMari phenomenon. The paper concludes by specifying the conditions under which return to S^0 is possible: tolerating productive disorder, decoupling environmental state from affective safety, and recognizing tidying-as-compulsion as distinct from tidying-as-care.