Can messiness lead to creativity

you are not allowed

to step out of your room unless all that

mess you’ve got is cleaned

and everything is exactly where it’s

supposed to be

now aren’t all of us way too familiar

with what i just said

aren’t we always told to make sure

everything is exactly where it’s

supposed to be

but have you ever wondered why we are

told to do this

well one obvious answer is so that

everything looks good

but also so that we are prioritizing

where we keep our things

i admit when i’m being messy i am

i don’t necessarily find my things as

easily

but that does not mean i don’t

prioritize where i keep my things

usually my most important papers are at

the top

of my very long stack of homework

whereas the less

important and ignorable pieces are lost

somewhere underneath

can you guys please raise your hand if

you think you are generally

a messy person

well what if i say that being messy

isn’t all that bad

and might have some advantages for some

people

what if being messy to some extent can

lead to creativity

my first reason for saying this is

because messy people

tend to not stick to the basic rules of

making sure

everything is exactly where it’s

supposed to be

and therefore are unconventional this

was

also proven in a study in which 48

people

were asked to come up with unique ideas

of how

a ping-pong ball can be used half of the

participants worked in a messy room

whereas the other half worked in a neat

room

although the participants in both rooms

came up with the same number of ideas

a panel of independent writers rated the

messy room’s ideas

as significantly more creative

now to the extent that we can trust

these conclusions

needs to be further evaluated but the

study concludes that

although clean spaces do have their

benefits they might be too conventional

to let inspiration flow

we can also see that in movies artists

are shown as being messy

but is that reflective for you

personally in real life

which brings me to my next point messy

environments affect

people differently some of us in this

room might work better in a messy

environment

whereas some of us not really

it’s just like with music many of us in

this room

might work efficiently with music

whereas some of us

might get distracted by it same with

this

it’s different for everyone some of us

might get annoyed by the messiness

and some of us might work well

okay so i’d like to tell you guys

something that happens a lot with me

you know i want to take a break from all

that homework

and chill or i don’t know go downstairs

and i look around and everything is

perfect

my books are in alphabetical order my

papers are all in the right folder

perfect right but then of course

this image of the perfect room goes poof

and i look around and let’s just say

it’s not

my exact definition of perfect i have

random papers here and there from

different classes

and my laptop’s over here my phone’s

over there

and yeah let’s not get into more detail

i am then told that before i go anywhere

i need to make sure that my room looks

clean

but what if i spent my time on actually

doing things i like

which is more likely to lead to

creativity rather than by making sure

each paper

is in the right folder in my opinion

many times

people spend so much time on cleaning up

when they can use that time to do

something they enjoy

now from the situation i just mentioned

i am

definitely not saying that i should have

spent

that i should have not cleaned up

throughout the whole day

but that it would be unnecessary to be

organized

at that particular moment when i know

i’ll get back to what i’m working on

lastly believe it or not even some of

the geniuses in our world were messy

for example albert einstein and steve

jobs

again i am not saying that messiness

is better than being organized and that

the first thing you guys should go home

should do when you go home is spread all

your papers out

trash your rooms and then when your mom

asks you

why your room looks like this to say

well an 8th grader told me so

all i’m saying is that messiness for

some of us might not be a disadvantage

and but but that’s not an excuse to be

overly disorganized

it’s just that messiness for some of us

to some extent only can lead to

creativity

albert einstein even said if a cluttered

desk

is a sign of a cluttered mind of what

then

is an empty desk aside thank you