In case you haven't noticed, many of the work spaces we feature on our pages are very minimalist. Nary an item is out of place with the desks clean of all clutter. We often wonder when we look at our own desks how they manage to keep their work spaces so pristine and if the "no tiny items anywhere" look is something set up just for the photo shoot. As a small antidote to all of the work spaces you've seen with hardly anything in them, we present our very own messy little desk.

Granted, by some standards this humble desk is not terribly messy, but compared to others we have featured on the site, it really is. There are multiple items sitting in one dish piled on top of one another and we think that to many a clean desk aesthete this represents all that is wrong with home offices. The footprint of our desk is small and in this workspace we not only write, we also sew, chart patterns, edit images, design layouts, and do any number of papercrafts.

Not everyone works well in an empty workspace, some, like us, prefer to have items that inspire them around their desk as well as items that remind them of what they need to do. For us, out of sight is often out of mind, when it comes to tasks that need to be done and we need the pile of things to serve as a visual reminder.

We have been encouraged to tidy up our desk on numerous occasions and after each tidy/ cleaning session we've been frustrated by not being able to remember where we put things. For us, working messy is working well, and it helps to inspire our creative juices and stay focused. The messy desk is not for everyone, but for us, it's our work home, our little nest and we would not have it any other way.

What about you, do you prefer a messy desk?

(Images: Joelle Alcaidinho)