There’s magic in mess: Why you should embrace a disorderly desk

http://timharford.com/2016/10/theres-magic-in-mess-why-you-should-embrace-a-disorderly-desk/

by gpresot • 10 years ago

83 91 10 years ago

timharford.com

petepete• 10 years ago

Didn't realise Tim Harford had a website. More or Less is an excellent programme, I listen weekly.

Toenex• 10 years ago

His books are good too.

sotojuan• 10 years ago

Interesting. A messy desk (i.e. anything that doesn't just have my laptop and notebook on it) really bothers me and makes it hard to focus.

arethuza• 10 years ago

You wouldn't like my desk (actually 2 desks) at work - I have a pile of stuff that includes, on casual inspection: a Microsoft Surface (half buried), 2 sets of earphones, a fleece hat that has been there since last winter, my wallet, some maps, tattered flip chart pages, notebooks, a good 2" of documents in various stages of decomposition (used for scribbling on rather than reading), half destroyed vendor anti-stress toys, a barcode scanner and stand....

And my actual work monitors, keyboard and mouse on a relatively tidy area.

rhapsodic• 10 years ago

I've found the easiest stuff to organize is the stuff I no longer have. I used to feel obligated to file a lot of stuff that came in the mail, like addendums to insurance policies, annual reports for stocks or funds, credit card statements, etc. But it dawned on me long ago that I virtually never need to refer back to that stuff. So it goes straight into the trash. When the bookshelves in my office fill up, I cull the books and donate them to Goodwill or sell them to a used bookstore. Old clothes, shoes, etc. are routinely purged from my life.

Some people love to acquire new things. I love getting rid of old things that no longer serve a purpose in my life.

vinay427• 10 years ago

I usually take a photo of documents that there's a small chance I would need in the future. This way, they take up a very small amount of space on my phone but in case I need something again the photo will usually be sufficient and I can search by date to find it.

thedevil3• 10 years ago

I do something similar: put in a pile and about once a month I scan the pile (I bought a printer with a paper-feed just for this), upload it to cloud storage, and date it.

douche• 10 years ago

I don't think I have ever thrown away a book. Some day, I hope to have one of those Victorian style libraries with a rolling staircase to house all of my books...

pavel_lishin3• 10 years ago

I read that as "spiral staircase", and now I want to figure out how to build a Archimedes-screw-like rotating spiral staircase that also doubles as a bookshelf.

BeetleB3• 10 years ago

I don't think I have ever thrown away a book.

I used to be that guy. Then I got tired of hauling all that stuff every time I moved.

Now, if I can reasonably expect my library to have it, I don't keep it (unless it's a reference book I need to consult often). And when I buy new books, I prefer ebooks. They don't take up much clutter.

BeetleB3• 10 years ago

I've found the easiest stuff to organize is the stuff I no longer have.

I'm usually a mess of clutter. Some years ago I started attending workshops on tidying up. Every one of them points out: Before you even begin to organize stuff, identify stuff to throw out and get rid of it. Then organizing is easier.

The real problem is not that it's hard to organize. The problem is we have too much stuff.

For people interested in this, a recent bestseller:

https://www.amazon.com/Life-Changing-Magic-Tidying-Declutter...

I only started applying it, and it's not as quick as it may sound. Time will tell if the principles in it last, or if I become a mess again.

Basic ideas:

1. Get rid of stuff.

2. How do you decide what to get rid of? Keep only the things that bring joy to you.

3. What about utilitarian stuff (e.g. cutlery)? Well, keep some. Better yet, if they don't give you joy, buy ones that do and throw the current ones away.

4. Sentimental stuff you don't use? If you're cramped for space, take pictures and donate. These things may bring you joy when you look at them, but if your home is full, they are literally preventing you from new experiences.

The basic ideas:

1. If you surround yourself only with stuff that brings joy, you'll find yourself a lot happier.

2. This may be a bit expensive, as good quality stuff is pricey. However, if you follow this rule when you go out to shop, you pretty much eliminate buying a lot of stuff with this criterion: Am I buying it because it's a good deal or an impulse, or will this truly bring joy to me? This eliminates most of the useless purchases. Another thought: Do I have things in my home that I bought earlier and have not properly utilized/used? If so, why am I adding more stuff? If I buy this, what can I identify at home to get rid of?

Overall, buying pricier items may be cheaper in the long run.

Recently I went back to using fountain pens. I used to when I was young, but stopped when I entered university. Now that I use them, I wish I had never stopped. I threw away all my "freebie" ballpoints, and just use the fountain pen. Problem? A lot of paper doesn't handle it. So I now only purchase notebooks that have better quality paper. Is this cheaper? Probably never will be. However, I now just love to take notes on paper. I've added a joy to my life and removed something pedestrian.

amelius2• 10 years ago

It may also be worthwhile to consider maintaining a least-recently-used (LRU) queue. The stuff you haven't touched in, say, 5 years you can safely throw away.

AlwaysRock2• 10 years ago

I operate in a similar way. If I get a new thing a old thing goes. I bought a lot of new shirts over the last six months and realized I needed to donate half my closet over the last couple week. Same goes for electronics, cutlery, books, ect.

chrisbennet• 10 years ago

“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?” - Albert Einstein

mountaineer225• 10 years ago

Can't upvote it enough (I am sure there are better links):

http://assets3.bigthink.com/system/idea_thumbnails/54803/pri...

andars• 10 years ago

A great quote, but another one that wasn't actually Einstein. Appears to be from Laurence Peter (eponym of the Peter Principle). reply

dasil0032• 10 years ago

Makes sense, I don't like to imagine Einstein working at a desk but in front of a blackboard the size of a cinema screen.

babygoat• 10 years ago

A focused mind.

kirykl• 10 years ago

A friend of mine described work in the planning dept for major manufacturer. On the shop floor where equipment, parts shelves, tools all belonged were outlined in tape. This would show if something was out of place and keep the floor orderly.

However at his desk he was also required to outline everything in tape. His stapler, keyboard, mousepad, laptop, wires running across were all outlined on the desk in tape. They would have desk audits, and any repeated deviation, where an item was outside its outline, would result in HR action.

BostonEnginerd• 10 years ago

This sort of thing is typical in manufacturing environments. It's often called 5S -- sort", "set in order", "shine", "standardize", and "sustain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5S_%28methodology%29

Jtsummers7• 10 years ago

And 5S is stellar in a production or manufacturing environment. Great in labs, too. It shines when physical products and processes are the primary purpose of an area.

It absolutely sucks when it's applied to the physical space of an office (well, overly) where information is the purpose. A digital 5S needs to be developed, the physical one is mostly irrelevant.

mountaineer225• 10 years ago

Used as part of the Toyota Production system:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System

As based on the Japanese principal of kaizen (the original CI):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen

and I would also like to mention Deming:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming

thedevil3• 10 years ago

I wanted to take this opportunity to give a shameless endorsement of Google's Inbox app.

I prefer something like what the article called the "piler" strategy. I don't like spending precious time and energy organizing things. But the problem is if I have too many things in front of me, I can't concentrate. My anxiety builds up. My creativity vanishes.

The Inbox app lets me reach an optimal balance of order and productivity. It's changed my life. And ever since, I've been proselytizing it.

This post thinks that you have to trade off order and productivity, but why not both? It now sounds like a false trade-off to me.

(PS Using search rather than categories and folders for email and files also was a big win but I'm not as excited about that now because that was years ago.)

Shank• 10 years ago

Completely agree. Low priority gets 90% of my inbox, and I only ever glance at, but rarely open the contents. Sometimes something catches my eye, but the vast majority of the time it doesn't and I just end up archiving it.

Search does work wonders, though, and I find myself using that a lot more to find emails, but it's so fast I consider it frictionless.

GrinningFool• 10 years ago

Missing the eighth or tenth meeting invite because it was auto-filed as an 'update' and never notified me, as well as similar experiences with messages I consider 'important' put an end to Inbox for me. I did first try 'training' it by moving things where they should be, but Inbox never changed what it did.

dasil0032• 10 years ago

Yeah this machine learning and personal assistant tech is on the ugly side of the uncanny valley right now. When we have the Star Trek computer then I'll get on board, but right now apps like Inbox flat out create more stress than save time.

knz• 10 years ago

What is the advantage of the Inbox App over just using the archive button and maintaining only a few important emails in the regular inbox?

I did briefly try the Inbox app when it first came out but found the automatic sorting meant I occasionally missed important emails. If you use the regular inbox and the archive button you can at least see everything coming in and decide if it is important. I've been aggressive about disabling email from services that offer their own inbox (Facebook, Asana, Github etc) and unsubscribing from automated email lists - that helps limit how much I am archiving.

thedevil3• 10 years ago

Reminders and snoozing are key differences from gmail.

Also, I disabled bundling right away after I started using Inbox. The bundling is useful sometimes but I thought it more pain than it's worth. Perhaps that's why more people don't use Inbox.

Jtsummers7• 10 years ago

I've been using the Super Organised Method and didn't know it. Though not with papers (so much). I use it with clothes, books, and digital content like apps on my phone.

  To most of us, it may seem obvious that piling is
  dysfunctional while filing is the act of a serious
  professional. Yet when researchers from the office
  design company Herman Miller looked at high-performing
  office workers, they found that they tended to be
  pilers. They let documents accumulate on their desks,
  used their physical presence as a reminder to do work,
  and relied on subtle cues — physical alignment, dog-
  ears, or a stray Post-it note — to orient themselves.

Filing requires cognitive effort. How do I categorise this email (tags, in Gmail, were wonderful for solving this)? How do I file this contact (circles, another good idea)? Metadata is more practical, ultimately, than creating a hierarchical category system that is simultaneously too precise and not precise enough. Simple categories like "work", "home", "school" can work to effectively divide my content. But what happens when work is paying for school? I need a letter from the school to send to HR for reimbursement (that email gets tagged as: reimbursement, school, work, tuition; a search in any of the related folders will find it).

Removing the cognitive load of precise classification, using the physical space for physical items or multi-dimensional tag system for digital items, allows you to focus on the work itself and not on the items that make up the work.

If you really need a filing system, hire a librarian.

Rezo• 10 years ago

In 2011, Whittaker and colleagues published a research paper with the title “Am I Wasting My Time Organizing Email?”. The answer is: yes, you are. People who use the search function find their email more quickly than those who click through carefully constructed systems of folders.

I used to organize email into folders meticulously, later using tags and rules. What a complete waste of time. These days I refuse to spend even a second organizing email or reducing my inbox, as I can summon any email even from years ago in a few seconds with fuzzy search terms. Here's another heresy I'm testing that I think may turn out to be true: Spending any effort whatsoever organizing files on your computer is equally worthless.

mountaineer225• 10 years ago

Agreed. This is where the real-world analogy of cabinets and file-folders breaks down.

Yet we attempt to emulate it.

Some people are horrified or judged based on a user's refusal to use filters and folders, carefully organizing content, and having an empty inbox.

AndrewUnmuted• 10 years ago

Eh. One day I wanted to practice my BASH foo and wrote some scripts to rsync my files into neat dirs in my /home. 25 minutes later, I never had a file management or organization problem again.

Email would be considerably harder to organize in this fashion unless you run your own mailserver.

tdb7893• 10 years ago

What works for me on my computer is put things into general buckets of downloads, things I don't care about, things I need to keep, and programming projects. This really basic organization allows me to be able to delete lots of files without worry while taking almost no time to organize. With search finding things is easy but deleting everything you don't need can still be hard.

putterson• 10 years ago

I found it striking how similar the system that I have settled into is to yours, and also the similarity of the benefits that you ascribed to it. I love having my /home/name/tmp folder and being able to delete everything in it without worry when I find it becoming a bit crowded. I find that it takes care of most things I don't need but there are a lot of small projects and downloaded libraries that sit in my programming projects directory that are more difficult to delete. All in all I find the organization very relaxing and passive. Roughly the buckets I have are: - Downloads - Documents - workspace (programming projects) - tmp

dictum• 10 years ago

I also settled into something similar.

I only use 4 main directories. One for code projects, one for design projects, ~/Downloads for transient files, ~/Documents for files that don't belong to an specific project.

Once in a while I create a YYYY-MM-DD folder, drop the current version of each of those folders, and start again with a clean slate. If I need to edit a file, I just search for it and edit it where it is; if I notice I'm having to edit it often, I may bring it back to its previous folder.

If it looks like what a regular user would do, that's exactly why I started doing it. I don't want to care.

Avshalom2• 10 years ago

Yup I am happily humming along at inbox-7000 and never moving anything from firefox's Downloads folder.

basch5• 10 years ago

work-inbox-21.5k gmail-inbox-49.5k

i cant imagine interacting, sorting, and deleting all those items. search works perfectly every time, never been unable to find a work email.

i also cant imagine using email as a todo list over some kind of team/projectmanagement inbox software such as https://www.enchant.com/, frontapp, intercom, missive, zendeskinbox, streak, trello, asana etc.

Ntrails• 10 years ago

I use my inbox as a to do list, so I'm fairly brutal about keeping it clear. But it's very true - at my previous job I was often able to pull up that one important email from a year or two ago that I vaguely remembered in just a couple of minutes.

antisthenes• 10 years ago

Here's another heresy I'm testing that I think may turn out to be true: Spending any effort whatsoever organizing files on your computer is equally worthless.

As long as the proper files are in the backed up folders, I suspect your theory to hold true.

s_kilk2• 10 years ago

Or maybe split them into folders like "Receipts", "Documents", "Books", etc... But beyond that is a cliff of diminishing returns.

galfarragem• 10 years ago

It depends.

As an housing architect is crutial to have all documents in a predictable order, specially when I don't work alone. A team of architects normally work in the same large set of files, so to simplify collaboration a good file naming system is mandatory.

https://github.com/galfarragem/hamster-gtd

krylon4• 10 years ago

The worst I have seen is people using the Trash folder to store mail, without eve emptying it. At work, I once had to clean out about 10000 mails from user's mailbox and thought it polite to empty the trash.

Oh, was she mad...

johngalt• 10 years ago

The first time I saw this I was floored. After seeing it a few times, I was curious: "what establishes this pattern?", "how do people arrive at thinking of the trash folder as an archive?"

In most cases they are using the delete key something like a surrogate for the read/unread flag. Keeping the inbox 'clean' of old email. I tried testing with view filters set to only show unread email, but that didn't work because the read flag is toggled too easily. Effectively they want a button that says "I'm done with you go away" to an email in their inbox.

TeMPOraL3• 10 years ago

The best trick I found so far for managing my inbox is the one I learned from "Deep Work" - just unsubscribe from every goddamn newsletter and notification service that isn't very important to you. I did that over the course of two weeks, and now I get a dozen or so mails a day on my personal account, instead of 100+...

AlwaysRock2• 10 years ago

Yes. Every single unwanted email I get I take the time to unsubscribe. I get far less email now and it makes for a much cleaner inbox.

brassic• 10 years ago

Spending any effort whatsoever organizing files on your computer is equally worthless.

Absolutely. I've been practising this for more than 20 years. When the NT 4.0 Option Pack came out in 1998 I was delighted because it gave me a search engine on my desktop and I could stop feeling guilty about my lack of organisation. I don't have trouble finding things.

henrik_w• 10 years ago

This post is derived from his latest book, Messy. I haven't read it, but it looks interesting. The other day there was another article also based on the book that I thought was good (on problems with automation):

Crash: how computers are setting us up for disaster https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/11/crash-how...

DannyB2• 10 years ago

Some people who have what appears to be a disorganized mess, always know EXACTLY where any particular item is when it is wanted.

mountaineer225• 10 years ago

I wonder if some people think in 3 dimensions versus taxonomically?

Combining for memory palace?

s_kilk2• 10 years ago

I'm probably like this.

For example, my CD/Vinyl/DVD/Book collections have never been alphabetized nor categorized, but I can find anything I want very quickly, because I seem to think spatially about the layout of the collection.

For some reason, I know instinctively that my copy of "In the Nightside Eclipse" will be on the upper left shelf while the Miles Davis records will be on the second-last shelf.

mountaineer225• 10 years ago

I've worked with quite a few older successful CEOs of varying industries, and a majority have and use a Neat desktop scanner:

http://amzn.to/2epDLEr

One of the CEOs had his malfunction, and re-appropriated his son's a day later.

The image recognition and organization are decent, but I can see how relying on it, and having it fail, can be very disruptive to one's process.

File cabinets and file folders don't seem to suffer from such things.

anc84• 10 years ago

Unobfuscated link: https://www.amazon.com/Neat-Company-NeatDesk-Desktop-2005410...

Pica_soO• 10 years ago

Recombination in the midst of mess, something the neurotic order makers and perfecter s cant see. Your brand new concepts, was born in a bloody mess, imperfected and shivering. And it was born by a different mindset, and will be again. There are things you cant see, you cant become, you cant create, limits, that you can not overcome, because they make you so great in all the other situations.

No, side is more worth than the others, though the cooperate bureaucrats would be of another opinion, because you cant see, what has yet to be. You cant differentiate against what chaos will give birth too. Enjoy your day.

makecheck• 10 years ago

A mess in a fixed area can serve as a reminder of your mental limit. When your space is “full”, use the opportunity to take care of something and clean it up again (don’t buy more shelves or more boxes, for example). And ideally, entirely get rid of things you are not using. It’s the same with computers: you don’t want to let yourself do the digital equivalent of buying more shelves or boxes (don’t let yourself easily create even more new desktops or folders, to store an ever-increasing list of tasks); let your screen fill up with things to do and then use that pressure to take some of those items off your list.

krylon4• 10 years ago

At my last job, I shared an office with my supervisor, and his desk was messy. I mean, my desks tend to accumulate a Cambrian layer over time, but this guy had two desks to himself, both were covered more than a foot deep in paper. I am not exaggerating.

One day, I carefully asked him if I could help him clean up some space. I was kind of nervous, because - while otherwise the best boss I ever had - he was not very good at taking what he perceived as criticism. To my surprise, though, he broke into a mischievous grin and said, "If I start to clean up here, it will take no more than five minutes for my boss to come in here and ask me if I have nothing better to do."

His boss was kind of a neat freak when it came to his own desk, but he was indeed the kind of boss who, when he saw you cleaning up your desk, would ask you if had nothing better to do. (Which suited me fine, to be honest, my current boss is more the "You should clean up your desk"-kind of guy...)

TL;DR - a messy desk can be fine, so long as it does not control you. I have seen people whose desks looked messy, but when asked for a specific item, they could reach for it without hesitation. Once you spend more time searching for things than you save by not keeping it in order, you have a problem.

vvanders3• 10 years ago

I feel like there's some parallel lurking here with software development. I've never seen a production codebase that doesn't have it's own share of clutter, mismash and rough edges similar to a disorganized desk.

Moving business requirements, obscure edge cases, performance concerns all seem to creep into an "orderly" codebase.

I don't think this applies to all software, things with a very long release/feedback cycle(aerospace, medical, etc) necessitate planning and careful deliberation but there's certainly a tension between order and shipping code.

mmazing2• 10 years ago

I had no idea that I would see this parallel as well when I started reading this article.

I'm in a similar situation at my current job, we've got a few guys that want to go really crazy with OOP concepts (design patterns, going overboard with new technologies) from the first sign of a new issue/feature.

It really causes a lot of problems though, when your business requirements change (or you encounter an edge case) and you need to redesign the entire codebase to account for it. They are literally grinding everything to a halt with this stuff, and I think their issues arise from a need to categorize everything in the codebase prematurely, before the solution has "evolved".

Thoughts?

vvanders3• 10 years ago

Yeah, that's a tough one since you're dealing with a culture issue and not a technical problem.

The only thing I've seen effective is prototyping a feature 2x and then taking the 2nd/3rd iteration. Finding time for that in a normal schedule is pretty hard though.

Another approach if you have the option is to build the feature as rapidly as possible(within reason here obviously) and deliver it out of band. It doesn't win you an immediate friends(and may even burn a few bridges) however if you can pull it off 2-3x then you can build a reputation of getting things done. This has the potential to backfire pretty significantly though if you can't get the rest of the dev team onboard so I would be very careful about employing it.

quirkot• 10 years ago

I want to print this out. Draw a giant middle finger on it. Then post it on the entry to my cube. So friggin badly.

Take that you neatniks.

krylon4• 10 years ago

You and me both!

initram• 10 years ago

I've got a hybrid method that works pretty well for me. May not be for everyone. I have:

L1 cache - stuff on my desk that needs to be paid or read in the next 30 days.

L2 cache - Bills that have been paid and docs that have been read, but things that might need to be referenced in the next year - in a banker's box next to my desk, completely unfiled. Just drop them in when paid/read.

RAM - At the end of the year, file the stuff in the banker's box into a small set of folders in a file cabinet or drawer.

Disk - At the end of the year, move last year's files into a banker's box and put it in the basement/garage/storage.

Also at the end of the year, take the box that's 7 years old to the professional shredder's place and destroy it.

I do have email folders for mailing lists. I find that if I don't, then searching brings up too many hits, and if I can narrow the search to a particular list, that will reduce the number of false positives. I have a rule per mailing list, so it's very easy to maintain.

There’s magic in mess: Why you should embrace a disorderly desk

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