A Messy Desk
19/04/12 05:00
There is more than one perspective to almost any story. Here is a debate that I don’t expect to see resolved in my lifetime: Is a messy desk a good or a bad sign? It depends on your perspective.
A messy desk is an invitation to negative judgment by others. According to a new survey by the staffing firm Adecco, a majority of Americans (57%) admit they judge coworkers by how clean or dirty they keep their workspaces. Nearly half of the workers surveyed believe that a messy workspace is caused by laziness.
Before I go any farther, I need to be up front about the fact that I have my own point of view. My desk is messy. That is true at home and it is true at my office. I occasionally make some strides at clearing the clutter, but most days there are stacks of books on the tables and stacks of paper on my desk.
According to the Adecco survey, the majority of the people who see my office think I am a slob and that I lack discipline and initiative. I’m not quite ready to accept that judgment as accurate despite that Office Max released a study last year that found that office clutter undermines productivity and motivation. Jennie Dede, vice president of recruiting for Adecco said, “Your performance coincides with your workspace. When it’s organized and precise you have the mindset and motivation to work.” I guess we know where she is coming from. Studies often produce the results that those undertaking the studies want to get. Knowing that the Adecco study was undertaken with a bias doesn’t change the fact that there are plenty of people who make negative judgments based on the messiness of an office.
There is, of course, another perspective. Proponents of that perspective also have academic studies they like to quote. A series of linked studies, released in January of this year, examined productivity instead of perceptions as was the case in the Adecco study. When it comes to productivity, messiness wins every time. People think more clearly when all around is chaos. Visual and mental clutter forces human beings to focus and think more clearly.
Clean desks and workspaces are the results of employees investing work time and energy in keeping things clean. Workers who are not so focused on appearances accomplish more work in the same amount of time.
The studies found that messy desks actually boost work efficiency and enhance employee’s creativity in problem solving.
Of course those are the results that I want. You often get what you are looking for.
Those of us with messy desks often cite to creative geniuses who were known to always work in cluttered and messy workspaces: Roald Dahl and Albert Einstein were both notorious for their untidy desks. Both contributed greatly to society. Both were amazingly productive in their lives.
The authors of the Adecco study believed the conventional wisdom: that a disorganized and messy environment can clutter one’s mind and complicate one’s judgments. They found the results they were looking for. However, not all of the evidence supports their opinion.
In the six linked studies released in January, scientists tested people’s responses in various environments including a messy shop front, a disorganized desk and a work environment where a language task reminded people of the messiness. In all six studies participants exhibited increased simplicity and clarity in their thinking when they were placed in messy situations. People think more clearly, make better choices, and accomplish more work when they are placed in messy environments.
Now if you are a person who always has a clean desk and keeps your workspace neat at all times, you will be able to find problems with the studies that connect office clutter with productivity. If you are a person who always works in a messy space, you will find problems with the studies about how messiness detracts from workplace efficiency. There are studies to support both points of view.
We messy people are, however, not the majority. Studies vary, but in the Adecco study less than half (43%) of us see no problem with the clutter in other people’s workspaces. People are judged more on appearances than on actual job performance. If you want to succeed, you cannot afford to ignore what other people think about you.
That is, unless you are Albert Einstein or Roald Dahl. Neither of them demonstrated any care at all about what others thought of them.
I’m no Albert Einstein. My competency with mathematics is strictly limited to simple algebra and maybe a few geometry problems. And I am no Roald Dahl. My imagination can get wild, but I have no ability to translate that imagination into short stories, poems or screenplays. People will be enjoying Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory long after they have forgotten that I ever existed.
Truth be told, I am not proud of my messy desk. I wish my office were more organized. Despite appearances, I think of myself as an organized person. I can go straight to a file cabinet in my home and produce organized files of every course I took in college and seminary. I have my books catalogued and shelved so that I can locate any book. My digital library database displays whether a book is at home or in my office. I can put my hands on studies that were taken in the 1950’s and reviewed by me in the 1970’s. I can be disciplined and organized when I need to be.
My messy desk is purely the product of my priorities. I have a job that is bigger than me. There is always one more call that needs to be made. There is always one more committee that needs to be motivated. There is always one more idea that might be incorporated into worship. I go to bed with undone work every night. In that environment, it seems to be wasteful for me to be cleaning my office when I could be sitting with an injured person or providing support to a youth working through difficult decisions.
And there is one more thing. With the Internet, it is easy to find pictures of offices that are messier than mine.
A messy desk is an invitation to negative judgment by others. According to a new survey by the staffing firm Adecco, a majority of Americans (57%) admit they judge coworkers by how clean or dirty they keep their workspaces. Nearly half of the workers surveyed believe that a messy workspace is caused by laziness.
According to the Adecco survey, the majority of the people who see my office think I am a slob and that I lack discipline and initiative. I’m not quite ready to accept that judgment as accurate despite that Office Max released a study last year that found that office clutter undermines productivity and motivation. Jennie Dede, vice president of recruiting for Adecco said, “Your performance coincides with your workspace. When it’s organized and precise you have the mindset and motivation to work.” I guess we know where she is coming from. Studies often produce the results that those undertaking the studies want to get. Knowing that the Adecco study was undertaken with a bias doesn’t change the fact that there are plenty of people who make negative judgments based on the messiness of an office.
There is, of course, another perspective. Proponents of that perspective also have academic studies they like to quote. A series of linked studies, released in January of this year, examined productivity instead of perceptions as was the case in the Adecco study. When it comes to productivity, messiness wins every time. People think more clearly when all around is chaos. Visual and mental clutter forces human beings to focus and think more clearly.
Clean desks and workspaces are the results of employees investing work time and energy in keeping things clean. Workers who are not so focused on appearances accomplish more work in the same amount of time.
The studies found that messy desks actually boost work efficiency and enhance employee’s creativity in problem solving.
Of course those are the results that I want. You often get what you are looking for.
The authors of the Adecco study believed the conventional wisdom: that a disorganized and messy environment can clutter one’s mind and complicate one’s judgments. They found the results they were looking for. However, not all of the evidence supports their opinion.
In the six linked studies released in January, scientists tested people’s responses in various environments including a messy shop front, a disorganized desk and a work environment where a language task reminded people of the messiness. In all six studies participants exhibited increased simplicity and clarity in their thinking when they were placed in messy situations. People think more clearly, make better choices, and accomplish more work when they are placed in messy environments.
Now if you are a person who always has a clean desk and keeps your workspace neat at all times, you will be able to find problems with the studies that connect office clutter with productivity. If you are a person who always works in a messy space, you will find problems with the studies about how messiness detracts from workplace efficiency. There are studies to support both points of view.
We messy people are, however, not the majority. Studies vary, but in the Adecco study less than half (43%) of us see no problem with the clutter in other people’s workspaces. People are judged more on appearances than on actual job performance. If you want to succeed, you cannot afford to ignore what other people think about you.
I’m no Albert Einstein. My competency with mathematics is strictly limited to simple algebra and maybe a few geometry problems. And I am no Roald Dahl. My imagination can get wild, but I have no ability to translate that imagination into short stories, poems or screenplays. People will be enjoying Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory long after they have forgotten that I ever existed.
Truth be told, I am not proud of my messy desk. I wish my office were more organized. Despite appearances, I think of myself as an organized person. I can go straight to a file cabinet in my home and produce organized files of every course I took in college and seminary. I have my books catalogued and shelved so that I can locate any book. My digital library database displays whether a book is at home or in my office. I can put my hands on studies that were taken in the 1950’s and reviewed by me in the 1970’s. I can be disciplined and organized when I need to be.
My messy desk is purely the product of my priorities. I have a job that is bigger than me. There is always one more call that needs to be made. There is always one more committee that needs to be motivated. There is always one more idea that might be incorporated into worship. I go to bed with undone work every night. In that environment, it seems to be wasteful for me to be cleaning my office when I could be sitting with an injured person or providing support to a youth working through difficult decisions.
And there is one more thing. With the Internet, it is easy to find pictures of offices that are messier than mine.