Admin's Assistant
Cluttered desk, cluttered mind?
When you take a look around your office, do you see disorder and chaos? If you’re like most of us, you do. Don’t feel guilty or ashamed by your lack of organization! Although some of your highly organized co-workers may wonder how you manage to get anything done amidst the mess, chances are, the system works for you.
In the book “A Perfect Mess,” by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman, they claim that messy systems can sometimes be more effective than highly organized ones, and in more times than not, a messy desk houses a highly successful worker. The authors attempt to disprove the bias in favor of neatness in our society and help people better understand messiness.
Piles of papers are many times seen as ineffective disorder. Although an outsider may find the mess to be disturbing, if you’re able to locate a project, book, paper or file at any given time, then the “mess” means something to you. The clutter may be an extension of your mind and will make perfect sense to you.
Abrahamson and Freedman note that messiness tends to increase with increased education, salary and experience. A large majority of CEOs are less organized, but highly creative. So, don’t think that your success is directly related to your organization.
“Mess isn’t necessarily the absence of order. A messy desk can be a highly effective prioritizing and accessing system. In general, on a messy desk, the more important, urgent work tends to stay close by and near the top of the clutter, while the safely ignorable stuff tends to get buried to the bottom or near the back, which makes perfect sense. The various piles on a messy desk can represent a surprisingly sophisticated informal filing system that offers far more efficiency and flexibility than a cabinet could possibly provide,” Abrahamson and Freedman explain. Everyone has a different style – as long as your piles mean something to you, then they’re useful.
People that are not natural organizers may find themselves spending more time getting organized each day than actually working on projects. Then, once it’s “organized” they won’t be able to follow the systems in place and will feel lost.
Starting to wonder if being highly organized is a bad quality? Not necessarily! The authors simply point out that there has been no research to directly support the benefits of neatness. So, if your organizational system helps you work more efficiently, then continue using it!
What does your desk look like? Do you work best in a tidy, highly organized environment, or a messy one?