How Messy Is Your Desk?
- Posted by Steve K. on May 15th, 2007 filed in Getting Things Done
- 1 Comment »
Here’s an encouraging excerpt from an interview with Dave Freedman, author of A Perfect Mess:
People who keep messy desks actually spend less time looking for things than people with neat desks. And you know what? Common sense backs this up. If you’re a busy person, and a lot of stuff is coming across your desk—how can you possibly keep a pristine, neat desk if you’re not spending a significant amount of time processing paper that could otherwise have been safely ignored if you had a messy desk. You can’t be extremely neat and organized unless you put a lot of resources into it. And you know what, it’s the second law of thermodynamics: Entropy increases. Whatever you do, the more productive you are, the more mess you create. And the only way to deal with that is to spend a lot of energy to get rid of the mess.
(HT: Tony Sheng)


May 16th, 2007 at 12:29 am
I like that man:-) I currently have little sticky notes all over my desk and if I put things away neatly I forget they are there and never do them:-(