The parcel on the mat again

Here's the same Tuesday once more, as an example of how it might go.

It's ten past nine and you're on the sofa. The meeting was moved twice, the email could be read two ways and dinner was something reheated. You pick up your phone, and there's a picture of a weekend bag in tan canvas with leather handles, for sixty-eight pounds.

You look, because looking is fine. You read the reviews and compare the pockets, and you spend ten pleasant minutes on tan against olive. You pick tan. Somewhere in there you notice what's going on and think, without any scorn, that you're after a lift. You ask what happened today, and the answer takes about four seconds. You were pushed around all day, and the next fortnight has nothing in it.

Your card isn't saved any more, so paying would mean fetching your wallet from your coat, and in that small gap you ask the question. Did I want this yesterday? You didn't. You write "weekend bag, tan, £68" on the list with Tuesday's date, and close the tab.

Then you do one thing the evening needed. You message the friend you keep meaning to see and ask about the Saturday after next. She says yes before you've put the kettle on. Now there's a date in the fortnight. You go to bed at a sensible time, a bit brisker than you were at nine o'clock, and for roughly the same reasons as before.

Ten days later, on a Saturday morning, you read down the list. The bag is there, and you feel nothing much about it. You cross it off, along with a desk fan and a set of glasses. One thing on the list does still appeal, a good pair of walking boots you've thought about since the spring, and you leave those on. In January they're reduced by a quarter and you buy them. They're by the door now with mud on them.

That's all it was ever going to be. I haven't promised you a transformed life or a smug bank balance, and you won't have a house with nothing in it. Some evenings will still be flat, and on some of them you'll still buy something you didn't need, because tired people do. But there'll be fewer boxes on top of the wardrobe and more dates in the diary. More of what you own will be in use. And you'll know what you're looking at when the want arrives at ten past nine. It's a mood that's gone looking for an object.

One thing to do today, before the feeling of having read a book wears off. Delete the saved card from the shop you use most. It takes a minute. The next time you're about to buy something there, you'll have to get up and find your wallet, and that's long enough to ask whether you wanted the thing yesterday.