Do you have an office or study? What does the desk look like? A friend recently who visited our house took one look at my desk littered with papers and said, ‘I could never work like that.’ I’m sure she couldn’t. She’s a different nature to me.
Some people need everything neat and ordered today before they can concentrate and be productive. Others of us can quite happily live with the clutter. I usually know exactly where to put my hands on what I need among the various piles of papers on desk and floor and if I don’t, I muddle through anyway.
I admit I need the rest of the house to stay reasonably tidy and clutter free, but when it comes to my study that’s a different matter. My excuse is I simply don’t have time to clean it up, especially with a book launch coming up and things still to get ready for that.
The trouble is even the time when I have made periodic attempts to tidy the desk, it never stays that way for long and I’m not really any better off finding what I need on a tidy desk, so why bother? If it doesn’t worry me, then it doesn’t worry anyone else because no-one normally sees it. I just shut the door on that room.
Of course, if the desk is in an area accessible to all the family and one where it is constantly on show that is a whole different proposition. Unless you are the only one who uses the desk or there is some way to screen it from public view, then it will need to be periodically tidied up. It’s not fair to except others to live with your clutter.
Someone recently told me, ‘an untidy desk is the sign of a creative mind.’ Then mine must be hugely creative. In reality, I suspect that quote was an excuse coined by another messy desk person. But it suits me to believe it.
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