We spend hours filling out questionnaires on dating websites in the hopes of finding our perfect match, or we take our kids to the local playground instead of letting them run wild in the neighborhood.
We live our lives in such a manner that we can construct a world that is highly organized, systematized, measured, and cleanly structured. We often resort to a tidy-minded approach in the belief that it will make our life better.
But did you realize that the way you've been functioning daily almost guarantees that you won't be able to cope creatively and novelly with the difficulties that life throws at you?
We grew up in a world that was moving from the Industrial Revolution to the Information Age.
The majority of what we do daily - work strict hours at our office, maintain our workspace nice and tidy, and complete tasks as quickly as possible - was built for a time that has long since passed us by.
When optimizing for efficiency, this makes sense.
Keeping everything in your life in order hurts your performance since you are less likely to adapt and improvise when you are optimizing for effectiveness when we are relied upon to offer innovative answers to whatever challenge arises today.
We need the messy virtues of the untidy, unquantified, uncoordinated, unplanned, flawed, incoherent, unrefined, cluttered, random, ambiguous, imprecise, challenging, diverse, or even dirty to become masters of creative solutions.
Both efficiency and effectiveness have their place, but you should be aware of the distinction and engineer your environment (which includes everything in your life) to receive the results you need when you need them.
Tim Harford, the author, feels that messiness is frequently the basis for success.
Get Messy
You receive the same outcomes when you use the same old methods. But it's when you're pushed to try something new that the magic happens.
Distractions are frequently the source of messiness. Many people feel that they can only produce their best work in a controlled environment, such as a clean workstation, no background music, no clutter, and no mess.
Messiness, on the other hand, is frequently the context in which the finest thoughts are formed.
Distractions and creativity have been the subject of research by psychologists. In one, pairs of people were given slides with a blue and green color scheme.
They were asked to determine whether the slide's predominant color was blue or green.
However, one member of each pair was a participant in the experiment, and they would sometimes yell out green when the slide was undoubtedly blue. This participant found this to be confusing and started becoming distracted from their focus.
The participants were then asked to free-associate words related to "blue" and "green." Those who were perplexed by their partner's color mislabeling came up with more unique word connections than those who weren't, implying that confusion breeds inventiveness.
In the Workplace
Steve Jobs recognized the value of cooperation. That's why he wanted Pixar's headquarters to have only one bathroom accessible from the main lobby. People would meet serendipitously due to this, he felt, spurred by the human desire to urinate.
Jobs, on the other hand, was making a basic error. He was correct in his assumption that building design influences how people work, but not in the way he expected.
Two psychologists from the University of Exeter experimented with basic office settings in 2010. Some were at a business office, while others were in a psychology lab.
Experimental volunteers worked for an hour on administrative duties in four different layouts and were evaluated on their efficiency and satisfaction with the work they completed.
With a basic desk, swivel chair, pencil, and paper, the original layout was simple. It was nice and well-kept.
With the addition of additional embellishments, the second arrangement was identical to the first. On the wall were big print images of plants, as well as some potted plants.
This office's employees got more work done, did it more precisely, and had a better overall experience.
The latter two office plans were identical to the second but differed in the design's charge. Participants were asked to spend some time arranging the decorations anyway they wanted in one arrangement.
This office area was left just how the participants had requested.
Scientists asked the participants how they wanted to design the final arrangement and then moved the furniture back into the initial setting.
People got 30% more done in the workplace where they picked their décor – and retained them – than in the first office, and nearly 15% more than in the decorated office. Low productivity and morale resulted from the final disempowered arrangement.
Following that, the psychologists inquired about the individuals' previous workplace. If they didn't like the office space, they didn't like the firm that hosted it, and they didn't like the work they were assigned. Allowing employees to build their environment was the greatest option for both productivity and satisfaction.
Recently, a wave of companies has featured quirky decorations inside their offices to bolster morale. Most notably is Googleplex, which had installed playground equipment and other such trinkets for employees to enjoy.
Many people consider this to be the key to their success. On the other hand, Google did not achieve success as a result of its innovatively designed headquarters. It constructed the toy-filled Googleplex after it has already attained popularity. Google's initial several offices were simple and uncomplicated.
It turns out that how the place appears might not be important. Some people believe that the more personal space is cluttered, the less productive you will be.
On the other hand, people enjoy having control over the environment in which they work, and this control frequently leads to chaos. If someone is compelled to work in an environment that they dislike, they will be less productive and happy with their job.
Steve Jobs was correct in his belief that more run-ins led to increased collaboration, but he underestimated the value of autonomy. When the staff voiced their concerns about only having one bathroom, he conceded. He compromised by adding three more in the building, which created many opportunities for socializing.
Mess isn't always bad, and it is most certainly accepted when it takes autonomous decoration. Encourage your employees to decorate their workspaces in whichever way they wish – even if it becomes messy.
Life is Messy
We are neat freaks who have a natural affinity for order. Order, on the other hand, isn't always the greatest option.
It will be easier to keep track of items if you keep them in their proper places. However, it will not help you cope with problems since the sheer number of things to keep track of will divert your attention away from what you need to do.
We don't need to get organized if we focus on actual action. Organizing tasks takes time away from substantial job completion.
Consider a cluttered desk. The unused papers eventually sink to the bottom of the stack. The most important things rise to the top. The essential objects will always get picked up and left on top of the pile. Thus, there's a natural inclination towards the organization.
Filers and pilers were two different sorts of people studied in one research. Filers create a systematic filing system for their documents, whereas pilers let their material pile up on and around their workstation.
They discovered that filers wasted time submitting papers early to keep their desks free and that they frequently filed records that had little long-term significance.
Furthermore, they had so much paperwork filed that they had no idea where they were. They had difficulty tossing things away since they were investing so much time in their filing system because it had perceived importance.
On the other hand, the pilers kept their paperwork on their desk until they realized they were useless and discarded them. They did have some archives, but they were modest, functional, and regularly used.
Digital chaos may also be useful. People, according to one research, generate a new email folder every five days. Because filing emails takes time and going through folders may sometimes take longer than scanning your whole inbox, these deep tree structures can generate their difficulties.
The chaotic portions of life, not the tidy ones, are where true innovation, joy, and humanity may be found. And appreciating messes is a necessary element of reaching our full human potential.
A good profession, a good structure, or a healthy relationship is adaptive and open. However, many of those ideas are no longer true in the world we live in today.
They are boring and oppressive, and they forego chaotic potential in favor of neat predictability.
We frequently allow this to occur because we believe it is safer and better. Keeping things tidy does not make them safer or better.
The nature of openness and adaptability is that they are fundamentally messy. When life deals you chaotic situations, the key is to keep an open mind.
Conclusion
Our urge for tidiness is so strong that we forget to value the virtues of the disorderly, which are exactly what we need to become masters of innovative solutions to the problems that life throws our way.
In reality, the worker with a cluttered inbox gets more work done; we meet our soul mate when we neglect dating services, and kids roaming around in the wilderness have more fun and acquire more skills, and have fewer accidents.
Messy situations tend to be rich ground for creativity. The use of a combination of incremental improvements and random shocks has shown to be a very successful method for dealing with various tough situations.
When paired with creative talent, messed-up disturbances will be most effective. An artist, scientist, or engineer is sent into uncharted territory—a deep valley rather than a familiar mountaintop.
But then skill kicks in and discovers new methods to continue upward: the ascent concludes at a new peak, perhaps lower than the previous one, but possibly higher than imagined.
Flexibility and improvisation are undoubtedly advantageous. The notion that we are in charge is deceptive, and the sooner we see this and embrace it, the better our results will be.
Messy offers advantages such as speed, economy, and flexibility, demonstrating that improvisation has advantages to neat. Clean squanders creativity and all the lovely things that flow from it.
We must accept the messiness and welcome improvisation, and the results will be wonderful.
To gain fresh ideas and frequent success, we need to recognize the benefits of the messy - the untidy, unquantified, uncoordinated, unplanned, flawed, incoherent, unrefined, crowded, random, ambiguous, imprecise, challenging, or diverse.
When the first answer isn't obvious, use your creativity to find an alternative. It's the only way to make giant leaps forward in your business and life. Dare to be messy, and your life will change.
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