Useful mess?

Watching CBS Sunday Morning yesterday, my ears perked up when I heard the words messy desk as a story lead-in. Keeping storage spaces organized has always been a challenge for me. When I was being hired for my current position, my former supervisor warned my current director of the piles of stuff on my desk - I call it "file by pile."

The Sunday Morning story featured one worker with a similar filing philosophy, who said they could find anything just by going down from the top of the pile an appropriate distance to coincide with the span of time since the document was created. I find things the same way, and often so quickly that many of my colleagues have been amazed at how organized my chronologically ordered stacks of papers are.

CBS newsman Andy Rooney was cited as an example, as he displayed his desk, which makes mine look really neat. Andy suggested that someone who's too organized is not productive. The story went on to quote a study that found employees with a messy desk as being 36% more efficient than their counterparts who are neater.

While the majority of busy, successful acquaintances have desks that are less than tidy, there is a hypocritical attitude toward those with messy desks that suggests that you can't possibly have confidence in someone who doesn't know which file drawer perceived important information is in. Zoom in on a Presidential press conference from the Oval Office, with W seated behind a shiny (empty) desk. If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what can be said of an empty desk?

A colleague whose life presently seems to be spinning out of control said, "I'm keeping up on my filing; it feels good to be in control of something." Good thought. So maybe the confidence to let things go is a corollary to being confident in life.

I've been doing a lot of desk cleaning lately, as I prepare for a major life change. I have gone through everything on top of my desk, and found that by the time I got back to it, all those agendas, and notes have lost any lasting value. Maybe that's the key - just pile it up until you can throw it away.