A long-maintained assumption about creative people is that many of them thrive in cluttered spaces. Coffee mugs strewn around the house; takeaway boxes never making it to the bins; a desk where finding anything at all is a daunting proposition.
A Psychology Today feature notes that creativity lies in chaos, not clarity, as excessive order may hamper original thought. It advocates for the mess and reveling in it.
At the other extreme of the spectrum, many people who crave clarity seek solutions to find structure and balance. We purchase folders for work and explore an unpacking and organizing service when moving to a new home. So, does this group not lend itself to creative ideas?
Hardly.
Let’s redefine the narrative on the relationship between creativity and clutter: it is not entirely straightforward.
Aligning Your Space With Your Creative Reality
The limitation of viewing spaces as organized or messy is that reality is rarely black or white. As more of us have started working remotely or from home after the pandemic, the need to align our space with our soul has become intense.
Consider your interests and the stimuli that ignite your mind. Some of us enjoy visual calm: the clean surfaces and neat lines that get the words flowing in the morning. Some like digital hallucinations decorated around the house, embracing the idea of cyber-delics (yes, it’s a legitimate take on psychedelics). The bizarre chaos helps them get new ideas for their work.
Neither a blanket messiness nor obsessive neatness can propel creativity unless it agrees with how you feel from within.
A Forbes story highlights the strange feeling of stuckness we sometimes associate with a place and how it holds the secret to reorganization. It explains that shifting our setting is equivalent to shifting our creative inputs. So, you will end up feeling restless or stuck if you try to ideate in a misaligned environment.
Functionality is Not Optional
Imagine a windy summer evening when you’re sitting by the window. Inspiration strikes, and you feel motivated to try your hand on a fresh canvas. The only problem? You cannot find the paints. Or the canvas.
It is a common belief that ‘decluttered’ is synonymous with sanitized or generic. We assume that organizing renders things dull or depletes spaces of their character. But what happens when messiness starts interfering with daily tasks?
It will certainly be upsetting trying to pursue creative interests, but finding yourself scrambling for supplies and wasting time.
According to Clutterless Home Solutions, strategic use of space can maximize storage and functionality in a house. If you adopt this approach at the outset when shifting to a new location, you can create a place that meets your unique needs. It will also resonate with your lifestyle and tastes.
- If a creative project leaves you little time to tidy up, try setting small goals and seeking assistance. For example, some people like to set a stop clock for fifteen minutes in the evening and use that time to clean.
- Look for creative storage solutions that allow you to display your best works and ideas without impeding access or taking up too much space.
- Allow yourself to have free zones in the house where tidying up has more lax standards. These partitions don’t limit your freedom but prevent inspiration from getting diluted while you frantically hunt for clothes.
Assessing Your Need for Order Versus Clutter
Sometimes, our habits reveal secrets about our physical and mental health. These insights can help us inch closer to success in our chosen path. This also applies in the choice between maintaining orderly versus cluttered spaces.
A VeryWell Mind feature shares experiences of people with ADHD, with many reporting struggles with clutter and procrastination. While they find some clutter comforting and even necessary, it can become overwhelming. Therapists often recommend organization tools for both the physical and technological mess we create in our lives.
What if your need to stay messy is a statement to reinforce your creative side, a message to a world that doubts you? Some people live for years in packed homes because they cannot let go of sentimental objects. Or items that are linked to an old trauma they never recovered from. In these situations, our habits emanate from deep-rooted incidents or experiences, not merely a personality trait.
Holding on to patterns that stress you out is unlikely to bring either creative ideas or success.
Takeaway
When we inspect our patterns of home/workplace organization, it becomes clear that chaos and order are not mutually exclusive. Nor do they cultivate or hinder creativity in isolation. Instead, they work as tenets of your broader lifestyle and habits, affecting you in ways you (subconsciously) dictate.
Chaos has a distinct place in life: in the choc-o-bloc pantries of homes with growing children and the desks of inspired writers who let themselves drift for just a second. However, decluttering can be like meditation, allowing yourself to look deeper within your soul and reflect on things that truly matter.
Arguably, success is a byproduct of multiple decisions, but staying true to your needs and ideas is definitely one of the big ones.
