By Leyla Zhaksybek.
Many of us perceive messiness as with the simple word- “bad”. To most, messiness is a sign of depression, anxiety, mental turmoil, laziness, and much more. It is the perceptions that individuals who are more unorganized somehow perform worse in society or are just in a worse position. Writers like Marie Kondo , and other minimalists, deeply encourage the fact that cleaning and organization are the key to happiness and fulfilment. We coined the term “a clean space equals a clean mind" , thus encouraging ourselves and others to keep our workspace and surroundings clean. But truthfully we should not be that quick to judge our messy natures, and not be that quick to judge the state of those around us just from their rooms. Various studies have shown a great positive factor in messiness, showing that messiness is not only a sign of a more creative individual but, also in some cases, higher intellect. Our habits reveal a lot about us, and sometimes simply understanding the powers behind our mannerism can help us more than we think and reveal more about ourselves. .
On the outside, it may seem that messy people are living in the chaos of unorganized papers, cups, stacks of books, and much more but in reality, most messy people are simply prioritizing. While this may appear counterintuitive since we believe that by tidying the space we have a higher chance for productivity and therefore prioritize our work studies have shown that messiness leads to larger skills with task prioritizing. Messy people simply perceive it as a lesser or meaningless aspect. They perceive it as simple background noise when focusing on the task at hand leading them to have better focus. The organization of one's space also leads messy people to make tasks faster and simply be bolder with what they are doing. Messy people, while living in a seemingly stressful environment begin to subconsciously learn strategies to deal with this stress and sometimes even ignore it as they do with a messy environment. Messy people focus less on the micro perfection of each and single thing and tend to look more openly and open-mindedly at situations, with ur getting caught up in the details.
Messiness is a great sign of creativity and innovative thinking. A study was done where individuals were put in a messy and tidy room and were tasked with something up with new ways to use a ping-pong ball. The Judges confirmed that people in messy rooms were more creative and thought outside the box with their ideas than the people in the tidy rooms. This leads to the idea that messiness can actually lead to more innovative thinking, which could be of great use in the workspace whether at work, home, or school. This might mean in the future to provide workers and students with making their workspace more personalized even if it means less clean and tidy. Obviously, this study does not necessarily mean that messiness completely improves one's creativity. If a naturally tidy person would be forced into a more unorganized workplace it might actually decrease creativity and worsen their work. But even so, it shows the greater potential of unorganized people. A lot of messy people find their own creativity and inspiration directly in the mess. For example, these individuals are Mark Twain who was notorious for always having a messy desk full of pacers, books, pens, and much more. Still, that did not stop him from having a greatly creative and genius mind. He stated that he found his inspiration in his messy workspace, which is similar to what a lot of other creatives experience in their search for inspiration. As Kathleen Vohhan from the University of Minnesota in Carlson school said- “The creative people feel free from the limitations in messy and disorderly environments. It helps them to break the traditions and produce new insights. On the opposite side, orderly environments which resemble safe and conventional zones encourage more routine and safe work practices”
There are multiple other individuals who, although are messy and chaotic, still work completely normally in their chaos. One of those peoples , Albert Einstein himself, arguably one of the most genius scientific minds in history. His desk, like Mark Twain's, was always filled with various papers, books, research, articles, scrawls, and yet he still managed to not only make his way around the mess but also made no one dare question him in his field of science. Although he was messy and did things in a seemingly more messy way, he found exactly what he needed whenever he needed. Another messy but successful individual is Mark Zukckerburg who seems to be in a consistent state of chaos trying to move and think faster than anyone else. Zuckerburg is known for his chaotic and non-conventional workspace where one could get lost in but that one might argue is just part of what Zuckerberg believes to be his burst for not only worm but also inspire innovation.
Obviously, this article is just providing another view on one's lifestyle and does not necessarily mean an unorganized environment works for everyone. There are those who prefer to work in a clean space while others in a more chaotic one. It is simply a work of the subconscious and it is essential to understand what works for you rather than what works for others.