In praise of a clear desk

Since I started to work again, I am battling against a desk which is overtaken every day by papers, notices and all sorts of things, like used tea mugs, not working pens, a picture of my children, memosticks for shopping lists in the supermarket in the evening  ( you cannot imagine the catastrophe, if there is no Nutella in the house!) and then also urgent files, very urgent files and files which would have been neede to sort out long before I started to work here - all very peacefully waiting with longing eyes - as far as files can have eyes - for being treated and filed and archived.

It is a constant battle. Until now I win  -  which give me the thought whether this is a battle worth battling?? There are two schools of desks: the ones which are completedly clean and look like coming out of a Interior Decoration Magazine. The others are so chaotic, that one comes into the room and turns on one's heels as it seems completedly useless to look for something. But both models work. Most of us are in the middle of those two extremes.

An empty, shining and very very big and clean desk can mean several things. Or there is someone not in the office at all and it is a showroom in a shop. Or the person concerned is not important, i.e. has nothing to do and fills in a purely decorative existence. Or he/she is so well organised, that we should be very careful and in awe of working with somebody like that: it means, that all is going over the desk, but is treated immediately and nothing lingers and waits until the Day of St. Nobody. So it is a message between real power and real powerlessness and it needs a good eye to see the difference.

The superchaos table might as well be a treacherous thing: Someone is overwhelmed with work and lost in oblivion between piling up dossiers? Or not well organised? Or simply very creative - most often I have noticed, that those, who are working in this creative chaos version always find everything in a matter of minutes and normally have everything stored safely away in their heads as well - The question now is, who is more admirable - the empty or the chaotic table-owners? And where are you?

Remember the feeling, when you were still going to school? Spending "hours" to arrange everything very neatly on your desk before starting to do your homework? It felt like being in charge and control. And it gave pleasure to the task of doing your homework in the best way possible ( ok, there have been many many times, where I just smeared the stuff down and was done with it). But I remember very clearly the pleasure of a well organized and clear desk. Nowadays I see it in the room of my daughter - the time which goes into preparing to make her desk right is sometimes longer than the actual work she has to do.

I take it as a good habit, some sort of concentration thing. A clear desk gives you freedom to act and to decide what to do next. But nothing against a full desk, even if it shouts chaos - sometimes a very creative chaos.