

Clear Desk, Clear Mind - doorty
http://doorty.com/clear-desk-clear-mind

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onan_barbarian
Apparently having a clear desk opens up a lot of time and energy to indulge in
on-line self-praise.

If you need to clean your desk to think straight, go do it, but it doesn't
follow that everyone needs to clean their desk to have a clear mind while
working; Einstein being the most famous counterexample.

As long as we're making wild generalizations, perhaps needing a clean desk to
achieve focus is a sign of a basic weakness in the power of concentration?

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sivers
No desk = no mess!

<http://www.tagbento.com/243/dereks-desk>

:-)

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akkartik
My problem isn't a reliance on tools, it's being forced to use tools. IDEs,
job queues, things that make me wait a thousand times a day. I wish I could
drop java and eclipse down a deep deep well.

It's just a different kind of excuse.

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kstenerud
Ah, the refrain of the neat freaks who feel a desperate need to trumpet their
position (and obliquely judge all dissenters), justifying with simplistic
metaphors that have no scientific basis...

How quickly we fall off the bus!

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jhen095
I think it's worth posting the original here;
<http://www.zurb.com/article/623/clear-desk-clear-mind>

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pacomerh
I honestly don't think this works for everybody, as long as my mind is clear
on what I have to do, it doesn't matter how messy my desk is. I used to be
obsessed with everything being "minimalistic" clean and I figured it was
because I wasn't working on the right jobs. As soon as I found my place, it
didn't matter how my desk was.

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petercooper
Great until: _Stay minimal, my people!_ It's good that it works for him but
it's different strokes for different folks. I'd previously assumed the sterile
environments you often see in "my desk" photos were staged for the photo but
clearly not.

I know more creative and productive people with a little clutter than none at
all. That said, Al Gore's desk sets my teeth on edge ;-)
[http://www.dailygalaxy.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/11/25/a...](http://www.dailygalaxy.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/11/25/al_gores_desk_2.jpg)
.. I find having my _computer_ organized cleanly to be far more beneficial
because that's where I spend more of my productive time.

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colanderman
Al knows exactly where everything is in that pile :) There is a subset of the
population that has both very good spatial memory, and has the ability to
"tune out" messes that they create -- they become part of the landscape.

I'm in this subset, and I'm count myself lucky that my girlfriend understands
that even though my place looks messy to her, I can find anything in a
heartbeat so long as no-one has moved it since I last placed it somewhere. She
has an innate urge to organize so I don't know how she resists :)

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noonespecial
I usually keep my area looking much like the photo, but when I'm rushing to
meet a deadline, the tiny amount of operational overhead it takes to stay neat
seems to slip enough that clutter starts. Especially when working on little
embedded dohickeys that need cables and connectors etc.

What I _adore_ is that little space "in between" when the deadline has been
met and I decompress by putting things away, setting things back into their
right order, and getting ready for the next big push.

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ojbyrne
You know what? Mine looks exactly like that too. Except for the giant pile of
crap off the left side of the picture. Does that mean I'm not zen-like?

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mrschwabe
Clear desk, clear mind but also fresh layout, fresh mind...

I find that after changing an office layout (moving desks and changing things
around) it results in a nice benefit of a slightly altered perspective that
can be a good healthy boost of added productivity.

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doorty
So true. A clear mind is a creative mind.

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MaysonL
Empty desk, empty mind?

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iworkforthem
note to self: clear up the desk now!

