Hidden Benefits of Being Messy
Ablang
David H. Freedman
S ociety isn't kind to messy people. Parents punish children who won't
clean their rooms, and bosses question the competence of employees who
have messy desks. But is messy really so bad?
Professional organizers claim that clutter costs us hours each day by
making it harder to find things. Our surveys, however, suggest that
messy people spend only nine minutes per day, on average, trying to
find things in their homes and another nine minutes trying to find
things in their offices. Most messy people can locate what they need
fairly quickly -- they just look where they last had the item. When a
mess has been cleaned, it often takes longer to remember where the
item has been stored.
Some experts believe we need schedules and plans to stay headed in the
right direction, but people with plans often stick to those plans long
after it should have been obvious that their plans were not working.
Disorganized people usually are better at rolling with the punches and
seizing serendipitous opportunities.
Example: Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin
when samples he had carelessly left exposed in his mess of an office
were contaminated while he was on vacation.
For many people, a certain amount of messiness can be beneficial...
Messy house
What does a tidy home actually do for you? It will not make you more
productive -- the hours spent cleaning won't save you much, if any,
time finding things later. It will not make you healthier -- if
anything, exposure to the chemicals in household cleaners tends to be
worse for our health than living in a cluttered home, unless the mess
is extreme and dust and mold accumulate. Finally, a tidy home probably
will not make you happier -- perhaps you feel better when your house
is neat, but if your family does not share this passion for
spotlessness, your demands for cleanliness are likely to lead to
arguments and unhappiness. What to do...
Allow certain sections of the house to be messy. Let your messy spouse
have a disorganized den... allow projects to pile up on the otherwise
unused dining room table... don't worry if the kids' rooms are a mess.
Permit mess cycles. Don't try to keep the home spotless all the time.
Let the mess build, and pick up every few weeks or when guests are
coming.
Cluttered desk
Neat people tend to equate messy desks with inefficiency, but for a
naturally messy person, a messy desk might be the most efficient
arrangement.
Helpful: Messes don't look as messy when they're arranged in stacks.
Things will be easy to find because they will be piled close to where
they were last used, and stacking is quicker than organizing and
filing. It doesn't take substantially longer to dig through a pile of
papers on a desk to find an item than it does to sort through a filing
cabinet trying to remember where the item was filed.
Untidy yard
Tending to a lawn absorbs hours of our time, wastes hundreds of
gallons of water and often involves drenching the yard in pesticides.
We all would be better off if "neat" lawns were replaced with "messy"
fields of native plants.
You can make a naturally landscaped lawn more palatable to fussy
neighbors by placing a border of neat grass around the edges. Also,
explain to your neighbors what you're doing and why. You might even
get them thinking about their own lawns.
Bottom Line/Personal interviewed David H. Freedman, a business and
science journalist based in Needham, Massachusetts, who has written
books on the management principles of the US Marines and the structure
of modern computers. He is coauthor, with Eric Abrahamson, of A
Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder (Little, Brown).
Bernardo Gui
wrote:
>Hidden Benefits of Being Messy
>
>David H. Freedman
I don't buy it. I live alone and go through cycles of
messy-during-the-week and cleanup-on-Friday-afternoon. It is just a
matter of a busy work schedule. I can generally keep the place clean
from Saturday until Monday night, and then things start getting out of
control. Thus, the Friday afternoon cleaning and organizing sessions.
Having a cleaner house does not just make me feel better. It motivates
me to get other things done that I might otherwise delay.With me,
there is a connection between a well-organized house and doing other
things that make my life more enjoyable.
After my office gets organized, I tend to pay more attention to my
budget and financial goals. When my kitchen is clean, I tend to cook
healthy food at home instead of going out and wasting money. When my
garage is clean and organized, I spend more time taking care of my
vehicles and enjoying my hobbies.
The plain truth of the matter is that a messy home takes the wind out
of my sails, so I keep fighting disorganization in order to keep my
life going in the desired direction. That might be odd, but I do
better than some people I know.
BG
Steven Stone
Outdoor light fixtures are broken and never replaced.
The wood fence fell down and was left where it fell.
Trees are growing on their raised deck.
The windows are cloudy and never been cleaned.
Weeds along the front of the house are as high as the roof line.
The garage is packed to the walls and roof with shrapnel that can be
seen from the garage door windows.
Two dead cars in the driveway (down from 5 dead cars)
an old mattress and stove are next to the house.
garbage and dirty clothes fill up the hallways.
The basement is choked with cardboard shipping boxes form the home
shopping channel.
Water runs thru the toilet 24 hours a day.. the float is broken.
Here is an expert messy family.
Gordon
343319...@z16g2000prn.googlegroups.com:
> S ociety isn't kind to messy people. Parents punish children who won't
> clean their rooms, and bosses question the competence of employees who
> have messy desks. But is messy really so bad?
A cluttered dest is the sign of a cluttered mind.
OK, Whats an empty desk a sign of??
hchi...@hotmail.com
Layoff?
Al Bundy
I had a neighbor that used clutter as his security system. No thief
could find anything there. He had a van full of tools and junk. I know
there were some very valuable tools there, but they were so spread out
and hidden under junk that no vandal would be attracted. If he needed
a 17mm wrench he would borrow one from me. He knew he had one,
but......
Clutter is an indication of how one's mind works. It can be turned
into something positive by some people. As Bruce Williams said, "There
are people who can start a business and others who can keep it going.
They are often different people."