Three-year-old sunflower seeds. Sweetarts. An overflowing, yet useless bulletin board. Piles of papers and folders from past projects.
If you guys missed it, here’s a link to my column on MSNBC.com this week where I share my own story of disorganization and how an expert saved me from drowning in the white hole that was my desk.
I actually had a professional organizer come in and help me organize the piles of stuff, just days after an avalanche of my stuff spilled over onto my husband Andy’s desk. (One reader calls this a “crapalanche.”)
I was writing a column on clutter and talking to all these experts, so I figured, hey, “why not have one of them help me.”
I got lots of mail after this story about my desk appeared on MSNBC.com and most of it was about how no one believed I’d be able to keep the organization going.
Shelley wrote:
I hope you will do a follow-up at some point, to let your reader’s know how it ‘took’ longer-term, and maybe ask your organizer how to cope with or conquer those types of emotions.
And on Newsvine some meanie wrote:
What is truly pathetic is that a ‘professional organizer’ had to be enlisted to clean up what looks like about three square feet of desk space. I mean that’s lazy! I am the farthest thing from a neat freak but 3-year-old food where I am working? How could this person be giving career advice? My advice? Get a bigger desk. But I bet it’s gonna look like the ‘before’ picture again within days.
That’s hitting below the sloppy belt. Anyway, it inspired me to show everyone, including myself, I can stay neat.
To prove it I will be taking a photo of my desk periodically and sharing it with you guys. Maybe we can rate my desk’s mess ratio, from one to five.
July 12th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Eve,
I’m on vacation with my two kids and hubby at the beach and on Monday morning when I get back there is an organizer who is meeting me to redo my home office! So more power to you!
I think it’s great to have someone help with that and take that task on and boo to the Newsvine comment!
Nettie H.
July 14th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
I was reading somewhere recently (I wish I could remember the source) how researchers actually discovered that so-called “messy” desks were actually a very effective 3D organizational system. Important/frequently used information was near the top and the front, and less important/less frequently used information was burried and to the rear. One of their conclusions was that such systems simply make more sense to some people (based on brain characteristics and personality types), and that forcing everyone to organize according to the directions of so-called “organizational experts” (read: people, imo, for whom labels and boxes and file folders with tabs are as necessary as oxygen) is actually detrimental to productivity.
Now, I hope it all works out well for you, Eve, but I know I’m one of those 3D organizers and I’m okay with that. I would love to see you write about the other side of the “clutter vs. neat freak” debate sometime–it would be interesting to see if the theory holds true.
[I will note that there is a difference between someone who keeps piles of papers and things vs. people who just never throw things away (or never keep things organized at all). Ask me to find something on my desk, and I can do it probably as fast as it would take someone else to open a file-drawer and find a folder. I have known others who let things pile up for months, and just print new copies whenever they need something.]