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