In Praise of Messy Desks, Creativity, and Albert Einstein
Justifying my cluttered workspace
I could choose to have a clean desk. An uncluttered workspace. But in doing so I would have to give up things. Just as science tells us that no new matter is created or destroyed, anything I do to change my environment just means that things will go somewhere else. I wouldn’t wish this state of things on anyone else.
That doesn’t mean I’m entirely unhappy with my desk, and the deep down, honest truth is that this works for me in many ways, on many levels. Much of it is by choice. Some is not. I’ve written about my lack of space and the desire for just a few more square inches. I live and work in a room that is at once, “a bedroom, a craft boutique, an art studio, an office, and a stockroom,” all in 154 square feet.
Running a craft business and working as a freelance writer doesn’t leave a lot of room for shame, or time to reflect on the desirability of a clean desk. But, it does leave some, so when I saw a photo on Facebook of someone’s clean desk I almost opened the door and let…
