
There’s magic in mess: Why you should embrace a disorderly desk - gpresot
http://timharford.com/2016/10/theres-magic-in-mess-why-you-should-embrace-a-disorderly-desk/
======
rhapsodic
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.

~~~
douche
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_lishin
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.

~~~
Jtsummers
That could be absolutely gorgeous. A couple options that pop into my head. A
column in the center which contains a number of shelves, and so the books. But
also, you could have the books stored in the steps themselves. The space under
the steps is hollow, so turn that into shelves. The height of the books would
be an issue, but paperbacks would do well, I think.

~~~
pavel_lishin
One problem with storing books in the column is that as the staircase rotates,
it might hit any books that are jutting out.

Although, I guess it doesn't have to rotate, I don't know why I wanted it to
rotate.

~~~
Jtsummers
I misunderstood you. So don't really want a staircase, you want a platform
that moves up and down along a screw mechanism? If the column were big enough,
you could have the shelves set deep enough to prevent collisions. The doors
could shut automatically (weighted mechanism), and a sensor that would prevent
the platform from moving if a door was open.

Edit, I guess it could still be a staircase, several steps up and wrapping
around a bit, that becomes the platform you ride up and down on.

~~~
pavel_lishin
The platform wouldn't move up and down; the staircase would just rotate around
the central axis. It's just a spiral staircase, not an elevator, albeit one
that rotates.

The more I think about this, the less reasons I can think of for having the
damned thing rotate - aside from the possibility of storing books inside the
central cylinder, in which case rotation the staircase would give you access
to more space.

~~~
Jtsummers
Ok, misunderstood again, but I get it now.

Depending on the size of it, the whole column may be accessible without
rotation, but may require you to stoop low for some items and maybe reach a
bit for others.

------
Rezo
_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.

~~~
tdb7893
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
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

~~~
TeMPOraL
The way I do it on both Linux and Windows is: all the downloads go into
Downloads folder. I keep the folder sorted by date (newest top) - 90% of the
time I'm looking for something recently downloaded, and for the remaining 10%,
I usually have an estimate in my head how old the file is, so I can do a
visual binary search on the dates quickly. When I need to free up some space
on the drive, I resort the folder by size (descending), and start deleting
from the largest files down.

~~~
paulryanrogers
Honestly I feel like the downloads folder is something of a waste. Typically
the software there is too old by the time I find myself reinstalling.

Perhaps it should be auto purged as things age. Most users probably
instinctively move things to be kept elsewhere

~~~
TeMPOraL
Software is only a portion of my Downloads folder. It's usually a random
collection of pictures, music files, videos, documents, spreadsheets, archives
with data, archives with code, etc.

------
Jtsummers
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.

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

~~~
mountaineer22
Can't upvote it enough (I am sure there are better links):

[http://assets3.bigthink.com/system/idea_thumbnails/54803/pri...](http://assets3.bigthink.com/system/idea_thumbnails/54803/primary/BT_Einstein's_desk_final.jpg?1397064501)

------
sotojuan
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
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.

------
krylon
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.

------
thedevil
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.)

~~~
GrinningFool
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.

~~~
dasil003
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.

------
makecheck
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.

------
vvanders
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.

~~~
mmazing
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?

~~~
vvanders
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.

~~~
mmazing
I'm probably in the backfire mode, as I've proven I can get things done in a
good way, quickly, so I was promoted and someone else demoted (so we've
effectively switched positions).

3/4 of the team is on-board with the getting things done in a good way, and
the other 1/4 wants to be a slow pain in the ass.

~~~
vvanders
Yup, sounds like you're squarely in a dev culture war which is usually a bit
above my pay grade. Hopefully you can find a way to bring them around since it
seems you have somewhat of a consensus.

Unfortunately the times I've seen that it was usually only solved by splitting
the teams onto other projects or the minority leaving the company.

------
kirykl
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
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5S_%28methodology%29)

~~~
mountaineer22
Used as part of the Toyota Production system:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen)

and I would also like to mention Deming:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming)

------
initram
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.

------
Pica_soO
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.

------
henrik_w
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...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/11/crash-how-
computers-are-setting-us-up-disaster)

------
mountaineer22
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](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
Unobfuscated link: [https://www.amazon.com/Neat-Company-NeatDesk-
Desktop-2005410...](https://www.amazon.com/Neat-Company-NeatDesk-
Desktop-2005410/dp/B01A0FQ8Q4/)

------
quirkot
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.

~~~
krylon
You and me both!

------
DannyB2
Some people who have what appears to be a disorganized mess, always know
EXACTLY where any particular item is when it is wanted.

~~~
mountaineer22
I wonder if some people think in 3 dimensions versus taxonomically?

Combining for memory palace?

~~~
s_kilk
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.

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

~~~
Toenex
His books are good too.

