“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk?” ~Albert Einstein
I’m gearing up to clear out my home office, and for me a hefty part of that process involves kicking and screaming against the mere prospect of doing it. Hence, today’s post, in which I become defensive about my clutter.
When I chanced upon this picture of Al Gore in his office (at right) and noted the spectacular state of his desk, my first reaction was, “One of my people!” (My second was, “What’s with the giant frog art, Al?”)
I felt instantly supported in my long-held belief that countless smart and successful people manage just fine with clutter. According to Ajilon Office, a professional staffing firm, this belief is not merely wishful thinking. Their research has found that “office messiness tends to increase sharply with increased education, salary, and experience.” (Which I guess accounts for why Mr. Gore’s desk makes mine look neat as a pin.)
Despite the fact that many high achievers do their high achieving amid slippery stacks of paper, there’s a whole lotta shaming going on when it comes to clutter. Naturally, a lot of the tsk-tsking is perpetrated by the booming home-organizing industry, which the New York Times says is projected to reach $7.6 billion by 2009.
Authors Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman, in their book A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder (due out in paperback on January 1st), attempt to combat the current home-organizing hysteria with reasoned arguments in support of disorder. While Abrahamson and Freedman do not advocate hoarding and concede a space must have enough room for the occupant to actually work, they also contend that people who tend toward a cluttered desk also tend to get loads accomplished (the piles are just a retraceable trail of work flow).
In an interview with the New York Times, the authors purport, “Mess is complete, in that it embraces all sorts of random elements. Mess tells a story: you can learn a lot about people from their detritus, whereas neat—well, neat is a closed book. Neat has no narrative and no personality.”
Even further, they argue, too much organization inhibits creativity. In an article in Inc.com, Freedman says, “When things are carefully arranged and kept in their ‘proper’ time and place and done in precisely the ‘right’ way every time, you lock out some highly useful qualities—such as improvisation, adaptability, and serendipity.” One of many examples cited is that of Alexander Fleming, whose cluttered laboratory desk held a moldy petri dish that led him to discover penicillin.
So here’s to piles of paper and moldy petri dishes! You never know what great discoveries might lie within.
Photo: Al Gore in his office (Steve Pyke for Time).
In harrowing news for the clutter-prone (
Something about the back-to-school season always fills me with the hope of becoming an organized person. This cyclical optimism is likely seated in a lingering memory of papers carefully collected in Trapper Keepers, pencils secured snugly in zippered envelopes, and the pleasing snap of a three-ring binder. I’m not sure those were *my* tidy papers, pencils, and binders, but nonetheless, this fall I’m inspired to attempt to de-clutter my house.
That is, until we moved back into the staging area, where I was supposed to *quickly* decide what to keep, throw away, or take to Goodwill. I guess a speedy pace was supposed to elicit my gut reaction to the items in question, but I wasn’t falling for it. How would I know whether I needed all those New Yorkers until I read each table of contents? What if I needed that book for teaching next year? What if that NY Times article would be good blog fodder some day?
Okay, so your 401K is impressive, your vision is 20/20, and your SATs were off the charts. But how high is your Walk Score? 
Horace Mann said, “A house without books is like a room without windows,” and I agree. (Growing up with literary parents I learned that walls exist to support bookshelves, and when the shelves are full any surface will do.) What Horace failed to address, however, was what to do when you have so many books they threaten to *obscure* the windows. Since lately my book piles have been feeling less literary than looming (see photos), I’ve been seeking advice on how to make them more manageable.
If you can manage to part with them (gulp), here are some options for giving books away:
Here in Seattle we’ve entered the glory days of summer, which means for the first time in months our focus has turned from the coffee house to the backyard. (Actually, we’re still pretty focused on coffee, but you get the idea.) As in towns across the country, people here are hard at work 
As a furniture design student, Sakura Adachi wanted to create a piece that bridged the gap between public and private—a space that created a sense of seclusion while still offering visibility. (Kind of the idea behind a blog, come to think of it.)
