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Here's a heretical question for Friday the 13th: How bad is clutter anyway, and does it need to be cured?

The Boston Globe ran a "messiest office" competition last year. The hands down winner was Alan Guth, a faculty member at MIT. There's a link to "before" pictures of his office at the bottom of this posting. It would seem that nothing good could possibly emerge from this chaos...

Except that Guth is one of the great cosmologists of the 20th century. If his theory of cosmological inflation proves correct -- and all observations, including the ones for which the physics Nobel was awarded this year, so far confirm it -- he'll be remembered in 500 years much as we now remember Copernicus. Can clutter be so bad if it leads to (or, at least, does not block) such creativity?

I've had the good luck to know several legendary figures in the sciences and the arts (as well as many who are just first rate), and none of them kept particularly neat environments. There's a great designer whose house is a mess. All sorts of beautiful objects haphazardly thrown about, electrical cords all over the place, lamp shades askew, bulbs missing. Yet the work that emerges from these surroundings is stunning. I've talked to Guth in his office. The clarity and precision of his mind is apparently unaffected -- and possibly stimulated -- by the wreckage around him.

Here are the pictures:

http://www.boston.com/realestate/galleries/springsweep/before/1.htm

I've had the good luck to know several legendary figures in the sciences and the arts (as well as many who are just first rate), and none of them kept particularly neat environments.

If someone's a legendary figure in the sciences and arts, then by all means, they should keep on doing what they're doing.

Thinking about this a bit...there's a big difference between out of control clutter and creative clutter. I'm mainly familiar with people in the arts, but most artists of a certain level need some kind of studio and much creative work is virtually synonymous with "keeping lots of stuff". But that's different from anxiety-producing, uncreative mess.

I do wonder a bit about how many of these creative clutter types have loved ones (or grad students) willing to do the dirty work of paying the bills on time or maintaining their filing systems.

Interesting idea... Perhaps you could also make the assertion that not spending any time organizing his office gave him that much more time and energy to make his discoveries.

When it comes down to it, I think everyone has a different idea of what clutter is... I'm pretty clean, but I've seen people with super minimal houses that I wouldn't be able to live in without feeling like I was violating a sterile environment. It's about what works for you.

You can't use anecdotal info to prove correlation or to prove cause and effect, although it could be the inspiration for a nice study or experiment. The info presented is anecdotal, like saying you know someone who is 100 and smokes cigarettes, therefore cigs don't affect one's health. You could do a controlled study to see if randomly selected first rate XXs (whatever) have cluttered, neat, or some other environments, to begin to understand if there's any relationship.

I could offer anecdotal info about people who have very cluttered environments who don't accomplish anything of note. So, from the point of view that clutter leads to brilliance, you can't prove it from anecdote. Does natural brilliance flourish in clutter? Can't prove that from anecdote either. You also can't prove that uncluttered environments lead to brilliance from anecdotal info. Any anecdote one can throw out is disproven by some anecdote someone else throws out.

I could probably prove that clutter in my own environment leads to my own ineffectiveness, and not to brilliance. I think those of us who cure clutter do it because we just want to and it makes us feel better.

On the other hand, my workspace where I currently sit has a fair amount of clutter, and I just did that insightful, and yes, brilliant, post ;D

i think Pixie's on to something, that it depends on the person and the situation more than a simple assertation that clutter = genius, or whatever. (not that i thought design dabbler was necessarily saying that).

what i can say, anecdotally, about myself is that i tend to work best in a moderate amount of clutter. i need to have my sharpies and highlighters scattered on the desk rather than neatly in the pen cup so that i always have one to hand. there's a nest of papers sprawled across my work area, all of which i could need to reference at any moment. if i had to keep them in a file i'd get nothing done.

and of course, one could also be the opposite type of person. needing pens in the cup so that they always know where they are. filing papers so when they need to look something up, it's right there in it's carefully organized spot.

i think this is part of what maxwell means in the Cure book about 'warm' and 'cold' people.

i think Noam Chomsky has talked about trilobyte's point, that "geniuses" of academia often have people to do the day to day work of maintaining files and organizing so that they are left free to be geniuses. i don't know where he said it, though.

Pixie: You're right that a single anecdote does not prove anything. My own observation, though, is that *most* of the creative people I've known are not particularly neat. Again, that's not proof of anything, but it's why I find myself unable to agree enthusiastically with the dominant ideology on AT: "If you fix your clutter, you will fix your life."

Here's another case study that I find interesting. These are "after" and "before" pictures of a kitchen:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51551194@N00/

The "after" picture is more in line with the spare design aesthetic of us AT folk. Yet, as some of you will immediately recognize, the cluttered "before" picture is that of a famous cook. Great things happened in that kitchen. The kitchen after its recent renovation doesn't look as though it's going to produce a single morsel of food.

Trilobyte: Your point is quite valid (and valuable). Ursula Le Guin wrote an essay once about the unseen hand that fed geniuses and gave it cups of tea when needed and did its laundry and paid its bills.

that was me up there.

maybe i'd get less "opooponax" if i just went by "the".

also, i don't think maxwell's philosophy IS that fixing your clutter (i.e. getting rid of it) will fix your life. just that you'll be happier in your home if it's arranged in a way that actually works for you. clutter management is a big part of that. and i think we all, ultimately, have more stuff than we need, whether that's computer boxes on the floor (my favorite part of guth's messy office) or a surface stuffed with useless tchotchkes (my cardinal sin). maybe getting rid of a particular piece of clutter will help, maybe it won't. but spaces that are functional for their inhabitants? not a bad thing, by any means.

also, design dabbler, that photo of Julia Child's kitchen isn't cluttered, AT ALL. there's a lot of open storage, sure. it's also decidedly not 'minimalist' in design aesthetic. but it's not 'messy' cluttered. there's plenty of open space for food prep, and everything seems to be in its place.

i think this is your stumbling block. a minimalist aesthetic and an uncluttered and organized space are not one and the same. nowhere in any of maxwell's writing does he advocate that everyone adopt a minimalist sense of style for the home, that every surface be sleek and sterile, that high modernism, le corbusier and van der rohe style, is The Best For Everyone. what he is advocating is a holistic approach to creating a well lived in home. and a part of that is space that is functional. which means culling the clutter when it gets in your way or serves no purpose. old empty boxes piled on the floor because you never got around to recycling them = bad. peg boards and shelving = good. it has nothing to do with whether the counters are butcher block or stainless steel, or whether you went Bo Concept or Pottery Barn for your desk.

Design Dabbler, I agree that the idea that fixing your clutter leads to fixing your life is questionable. It's similar to other ideas about how to fix your life - like "if only I could lose this weight, it would fix everything." And I think it's part of the current preoccupation with homes--witness internet sites like this one, HGTV, the clutter shows, shelter mags, etc.--which I think is part of the nesting trend, which started how? Didn't that start pre-9/11?

I think some people are naturally (whether by nature or nurture) more cluttery and some are more naturally neat. I'll be that's true of the brilliant scientists too. And everyone who is cluttery isn't preoccupied with getting neat.

I'm pro-decluttering if a person is feeling stalled or blocked in life, as taking control of the physical stuff can boost energy for getting a grip on the less tangible stuff. It's like changing your haircut when you break up with someone -- sometimes physical change makes psychological change easier.

If you're happy, creative, productive, and just messy, you don't have a problem.

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