What Does a Messy Desk Mean?
When it comes to a messy desk, I will hold my hands up and admit my desk isn’t exactly the tidiest, as a matter of fact I prefer to use the terminology ‘organisation in chaos!’ If you are like me and have stacks of papers and books with pens, stationary and other random objects of interest sprawled across your desk, have no fear, thanks to a recent study it has been found that there is method to our madness. Messiness is traditionally mistaken as a sign of laziness, but the truth is it has actually been found (when it comes to your desks) that it could be linked to being a creative genius.
The study fundamentally tested two groups of people, one group operating in a disorderly working environment and the second working in a tidy environment. The results showed that although both groups of people produced the same level of work in terms of quantity, but when the quality was concerned, the creativeness and interesting elements were far superior in the work produced by the people in the disorderly work area. It wasn’t just creativity that differed, the same researched also showed that people with messier desks are more likely to takes risks, opposed to those with tidy desks who are prone to following strict procedures, and working in an orderly manner.
“Disorderly environments seem to inspire breaking free of tradition, which can produce fresh insights,” researchers said. This isn’t particularly a recent thought, it also resonates through history, some of the world’s greatest minds were famously known for having cluttered and unkempt desks; possibly because geniuses would rather concentrate on producing new and creative ideas, than spend time putting everything away in a complicated filing system. When you have everything on your desk it is all within arms-reach, allowing you to let your creativity run wild. But I totally get it, there are two definitely still geniuses with immaculate desks, I think ‘horses for courses’ is the best analogy when it comes to the tidiness of desks.
Like I mentioned organisation in chaos is my chosen desk strategy (that’s my argument and I’m sticking to it!) and although to outsiders, it may look messy, to me it is organised, and maintaining that organisation is important. On the promotional market there are some fantastic, desk organisation tools which would look amazing on all desks. A great example of these is the foldable smart cube as shown in this video. When fully packaged arrives in cube form then when unrolls provides you with small compartments, pen pots and sticky notes that would look fantastic on any desktop, messy or tidy!