Slobs Found To Be More Productive Than Neatniks 396
writertype writes "Are you a slob? Do you pile papers on top of folders on top of game boxes? Here's the thing that those anal neat people can't even conceive of: you're more productive than they are. That's the conclusion of "A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder," by Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman, a new book that argues neatness is overrated, costs money, wastes time and quashes creativity."
Indeed? (Score:5, Funny)
"It's quite ingenious!" exclaimed one researcher, "it seems that because Anorexics do not need to take time to eat, they are far more productive!"
When asked whether health implications or possible mortality ensuing from Anorexia could negatively affect productivity, the researcher seemed angered, and left the interview.
On a serious note. One can get a lot done when they don't have to deal with cleaning shit up. But there is a certain point at which the stench, impossibility of finding important items, and spousal/co-worker nagging will counter any increased productivity.
Re:Indeed? (Score:5, Informative)
I think you are missing the point. Messy people aren't more productive because they save time on not clearing things up. The theory is that our brains are not organized in the same orderly manner as books on a library shelf. Our minds are actually quite messy and random, which allows us to be flexible and creative by linking seemingly unrelated things together in an instance. A messy desk may just be a physical manifestation of our thought process which is why we are more comfortable with it than with an unnatural sorting system.
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The real truth is that a messy desk is actually a vertical FIFO sort -- most recently used thing on top. Now I myself am a very organized person, but I also know that FIFO sort is basically the most productive organization str
Re:Indeed? (Score:5, Interesting)
While I am glad that more people seam to understand this concept, most people take it to an extreme. While a correlation does not equal causation, correlations are not useless. Almost everything we as humans know about anything started with a correlation. Finding correlations is what leads us to causational relationships.
Finding a correlation in research is the first important step. They should not be ignored, or denounced simply because they are "only" correlations. These correlations should be used to warrant further research to find out what the cause of the correlations are.
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Really, it's a skeptics mantra that "things aren't always as they seem." Of course, any skeptic will also tell you that sometimes things just are as they seem
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By the way, people who say "now say it slowly with me" are really annoying. I suppose I only have evidence for that being a correlation, but I'm fairly certain a patronizing attitude is a causation of annoyance. Perhaps we should do some experiments to find out.
Re:Indeed? (Score:5, Interesting)
Whereas, presumably, stupider people, perfectionist or otherwise, would just get started and take a break or give up for a few days after awhile.
This is why video games are so insideuos -- it lets people of normal behavior ape that of intelligent perfectionists -- getting all the positive, "you're special" strokes of accomplishment while not actually accomplishing anything of value.
Re:Indeed? (Score:5, Informative)
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Wow, you too?
I'm a fairly anal, lazy slob. It's a weird combination. I know what needs to be done, but don't have the gusto to actually do it.
For instance, my room isn
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I have found a kindred soul! Does anyone else find paper mail to be the most difficult thing to deal with? While my career, book shelf, tool box, etc are wonderfully organized, paper mail brings me to my knees. Perhaps a comparison with my email process is in order:
Re:Indeed? (Score:4, Funny)
a friend of mine who breeds small animals for use as bedding
Now THIS is an idea whose time has come! Imagine laying down at night in a nice fluffy bed of badgers.
Re:Indeed? (Score:5, Interesting)
I tidy once per month. It may take me 2 hours to do. He's spent 7.5 hours tidying. I've spent 2... I guess that the extra 5.5 hours I get to put in are somehow ignored.
As long as no one else starts interfering with my desk then I can find everything I need as a messy desk automatically sorts itself by usefulness order. If I use something a lot then it's towards the front of my desk. The less I use something the more it migrates to the back.
Much of the time I end up working more slowly just after a tidy as I have to start fetching things back from files. The tidying processes main purpose is as a filter. If an item no longer needs to be on my desk (older paperwork ect) it will not return unlike the regular files which will have reappeared on my desk by the end of the week.
Most Recently Used policy (Score:5, Interesting)
But then we get a garbage collection algorithm, too. Every so often, the short-lived objects which are no longer important are removed in your tidying process.
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But then we get a garbage collection algorithm, too. Every so often, the short-lived objects which are no longer important are removed in your tidying process.
Oh to see the world from a programmers eyes.
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When my desk is messy I'll have a coffee cup in a corner, some random scraps of paper, a router, a few network cables, a bag of combos, some twist ties... You get the idea. But it's organized messiness. I know where things are, I can find them, and I can work just fine.
TFA mentions some poor person who experienced an intervention...their friends cleaned things up for them. Now they can't find anything...nothing is where it belongs. I
File cabinets (Score:2)
This is quite different from the principle "a place for everything and everything in its place." Aboard ship you need to have everything stowed for safety and the ability to find things in a hurry.
For very big thinkers like Bucky Fuller, a dymaxion file can work, but for me at least I need a dymaxion pile.
For people interested in managing productivity it might be a goo
Re:Indeed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Woah there. Messy!=dirty. My place might look like a hurricane hit it, but I keep it clean.
Re:Indeed? (Score:5, Informative)
As for me I'm set, I'm pretty messy
Re:Indeed? (Score:5, Interesting)
Now consider the stack of papers on a slobs desk. Whenever he needs something in it, he searches through his pile. When he finds and finishes with it, what does he do? He's lazy so he just throws it on the top of the pile.
Just something to think about...
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And the sun revolves around the earth, I see it every day!
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Attention Slashdotters (Score:5, Funny)
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The time benefits of saving two minutes per day need to be offset against the productivity loss during periods of intense pain due to toothache, and time off for visits to the dentist.
There is a similar argument about showering. Being unhygienic is unhealthy and therefore reduces the efficiency of your body. Proper maintenance of any machine is essential for maximum output.
On the other hand the apparent chaos on my desk at work is actually the byproduct of multitaski
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A neatnik would take 15 minutes to shower and 3 minutes to brush teeth. So the total time saved in a year would be about 4 and a half days of time. Eventually all the teeth would fall out of the slob, so pain would only be temporary on that front.
I completely agree that the shower/teeth brushing argument only cares about the immediate time savings, which is exactly what the article cares about. The
Re:Attention Slashdotters (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea here is that a 'un-organized' person is not not un-organized. Instead this person's brain is able to keep much better tabs on where things are. Their memory serves as their reference base. Should they need something, they check their memory for its location, and knowing where it is, proceed to retrieve it. The aparant 'chaos' is not really a hindrance to a person who can literally sense where the things in his house are. There is no need to visually organize it, since visually organizing it would be an advantage to spot an item if you don't already know where it is. But since there people already know where the item is, visual organization never crosses their mind.
I'm not an 'authority' on this, but I feel comfortable speaking on it since 1.) I have ADD, and 2.) I can relate and understand this kind of multitasking the brain does in other people with ADD.
I hope that explains it better. =D
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For example, their minds might not view trivialities such as a clean desk as being important.
It's been decades since psychologists noted highly intelligent people tended to disdain rules as being set up for the common man.
Higner intelligence --> more clutter and, coincidentally, more productive, better work.
But it would require higher intelligence to see that link
Motivation (Score:5, Funny)
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I knew it! (Score:5, Funny)
"But, boss, you really have to admit that MY desk is much more messier than everyone else in this company! I demand more money! See here? We are talking about a freaking 3 DAYS OLD PIZZA, buried under papers and backup tapes for chrissake!!"
I hasten to say that I already got a raise. I am just rehearsing for the end of the year review...
The pile of papers on top of the... (Score:2)
Clean desk ... (Score:3)
Clean desk
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I would reply to this but... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I would reply to this but... (Score:5, Funny)
Absolutes are almost never correct (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that if you let the mess grow too large, it *WILL* impact your ability to operate efficiently. So every once in a while you need to do a house cleaning of your different paper stacks, your email, your desktop files, and whatever other info you use on a regular basis.
Which gets me to another point. It's not that the "slobs" aren't organized. In fact, they may have a very good organization system. It's just that they allow the system to be strained to the breaking point before reorganizing. For example, I might start with an email folder called "work". That's going to grow too large in short order. But when it does grow too large, then it becomes clear whether it makes more sense to reorganize around department or by project. So I organize around the most effective order until that order also breaks down.
My point is that order is a good thing. It merely comes in many forms.
On another note, I absolutely love the way GMail handles my email. Rather than moving things to different folders automatically (where I'll never even realize that new messages have arrived), its tagging and filtering system allows me to auto-tag emails from mailing lists, board members, fellow project workers, etc. So I can view it in my inbox, then archive it without having to worry that I'll never find it again. The result is that my GMail account has kept more organized than any other email account that I've ever used. Now if only I could get a time machine to obtain time to respond to the lower-priority stuff.
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I completely agree. Everyone has their own system. People with messy desks don't just shove stuff anywhere. They put it where they will find it again.
This has all been discussed before in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance [wikipedia.org].
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Re:Absolutes are almost never correct (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree with most everything said, but to add my 2 cents, I believe that moderate messyness is good because it works like a cache and a priority queue.
If I am a neat freak and put everything away, then its a waste of time to continually get and put away what I'm working with. Think of this like a cache.
Now for the priority queue, when I'm a little messy, the important stuff floats to the top. As the mess gets higher and deeper, after a while the stuff on the bottom becomes unimportant, and can then be cleaned up (similar to garbage collection).
The problem is that if you let the mess grow too large, it *WILL* impact your ability to operate efficiently. So every once in a while you need to do a house cleaning of your different paper stacks, your email, your desktop files, and whatever other info you use on a regular basis.
So true. Again with my computer analogy, this is when you have TLB misses, or cache misses, or you are thrashing your swap. All of those things are OK if its not a chronic problem, but if it is a chronic problem, well then, its a chronic problem.
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Actually, it's more of a Most Recently Used sort. The more recent the item, the more likely it is to be at the top of the pile. Which gives a best-case search time of O(1) and a worst-case search time of O(n). Average search time is application dependent, but it's usually quite good.
Another algorithm that I love using is Generational Garbage Collection. Unimportant stuff that I've downloaded or have created quickly gets
that all fine and well..... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:that all fine and well..... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why I was so effective a slob bachelor, but can't find sh*t as a married man.
Wife: "Why can't you put things away?!"
Me: "Why can't you leave my stuff where I put it?! Stop moving stuff around!"
Wife: "How can you find anything when it's all over the place?"
Me: "When I was a bachelor I knew where everything was. The reason I can't find anything now is that you keep moving things around!"
AARRGH! This same thing must play out in so many households. Of course it's always the "messy" person who's "at fault".
Flawed refutation: neatness != organization (Score:5, Insightful)
As a veteran "messy" person I see the deep flaw in quotes about productivity losses due to disorganization. Neatness does not imply productive ease of access and mess does not imply disorganization. I know where things are on my mess of a desk. And every single time I waste time "organizing" it, I then waste time trying to find stuff.
For me, and for other messy-deskers, neatness is the antithetical to productivity.
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You have been WTFPWNED by messy-desk.
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"But it already is on your desk, under the pile of unread finance magazines and your coffee mug, between the leaving card for the guy who left last month that you've not signed yet and all those unpaid invoices!"
But I do believe that a really tidy desk is a sure sign that the owner doesn't have enough to do.
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In fairness, Izsak makes exactly that point a few sentences above. It's the guys promoting their book, with their made-up "findings", who are blurring the difference between the two.
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No doubt both sides overplay their hand in promoting their beliefs of the costs/benefits of neatness/messiness. It always amuses me how everyone thinks that "normal" comes in one flavor. Perhaps its actually due to excessive empathy -- neat people shudder at the thought of living the messy-person's life and messy-people shu
He seems to think that "neatness" requires (Score:4, Interesting)
"People who are really, really neat, between what it takes to be really neat at the office and at home, typically will spend anywhere from an hour to four hours a day just organizing and neatening," he said.
Why not automate your neatness instead? I am a very messy person, which is actually one reason I like my mac. iTunes automatically organizes my music collection in a very accessible manner, with a few rules applied to mail I can quickly organize all my email messages, with expose I can find the window I need with the touch of a button(since I tend to leave too many open), and with spotlight I can quickly find the version of my resume I want to use with just a few terms. I am much more productive because I can be neat without having to slave over it. Time saving and neatness aren't mutually exclusive.
Chaos (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chaos (Score:5, Interesting)
The danger of this is that you are zero fault tolerant - one bus (or lottery ticket, for you optimists) is all it takes to cause a significant setback in the project schedule. It also reduces parallelism on projects which require the coordination of many people who must access the information on a regular basis.
I am, admitedly, a piler, and I have a very large desk (3'x8' plus a 3'x4' section for the computer) but I find that beyond a certain level of randomness I lose efficiency. I keep things out so I don't forget about them, but it make it very difficult for the others in my office to find things. I have to let my efficiency suffer a small amount by filing things, but the overall productivity of the office increases when I do so.
I know where stuff is (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I know where stuff is (Score:5, Informative)
Switch to a trackball as your primary pointing device. That way you'll have an extra square foot or so of horizontal desk surface on which to pile things!
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More productive? (Score:2)
1. Method of maintaining neatness. The article talks about time wasted maintaining neatness, and says that neatniks spend 1-4 hours per day on this. But I didn't see any discussion of time spent looking for lost items, nor did I see any mention of time-saving organizational techniques such as "handle it once" or file-as-you-go.
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This is one of the myths that tidy people tend to believe. It looks like a truth on the face, as the statements are technically true, but you must remember that 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 5. If you spend one minute each time you put something away, you didn't save that time, y
Not surprising (Score:4, Insightful)
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This is nonsense. (Score:3, Insightful)
Visit an organized, smoothly operating factory; everything is neat and clean. Go so a good mechanic; the shop is organized and neat. From personal experience I have yet to deal with a slob that is exceptionally productive.
This is yet another example of cause and effect getting mixed up. I tend to keep my work and living space neat. I have trouble focusing when things are too much of a mess. More importantly, if things are disorganized I end up wasting too much time trying to find what I need. However, when I get busy, when I'm under a tight deadline, I tend to leave things a mess. I have more important things to do than to worry about cleaning up.
If anything, a mess is counter-productive. Again, I submit an example from personal experience. My father tends to be very disorganized with his tools. His office and workshop are both a mess. Although he will always insist he can find anything he needs if no one disrupts his mess. But then he'll spend twice as long working on something because he can't find tool he needs. And I can't count the times he's spent ages looking for something buried under all his paperwork.
So it's not necessarily that slobs are more productive, but that these people are possibly too busy to clean up. The guy who's workspace is always excessively neat probably has too much free time on his hands. I certainly believe that, but it doesn't mean slobs are somehow more productive.
Re:This is nonsense. (Score:4, Insightful)
I respectfully disagree with you on this point. Some of the best mechanics I've seen have spare parts, dismantled vehicles, and toolboxes seemingly strewn about in a haphazard fashion. Yet they can diagnose and repair an issue inside 15 minutes. They even know how to bring a past-its-prime vehicle back from the dead.
On the other hand, the corporate meathead mechanics (who couldn't diagnose a flat tire without a computer telling them that it's flat) tend to keep incredibly clean shops. All their tools are put away neatly, old parts are never kept as spares, oil is cleaned up as soon as its spilled, and all the new parts are safely warehoused in their original boxes. Very neat and tidy, but utterly useless to the customer. Especially when it takes then three and a half hours to put a new battery in a vehicle.
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I hate to break it to you, but in Real Life(TM) it's not always so easy to replace a battery yourself. Especially when you need it done NOW (battery failure), the wife thinks you're too absent minded to do the job without hurting yourself (probably true), and the only place open on Sunday requires that they do the replacement themselves. Such is the way of life.
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I agree whole heartedly. Though I would like to make one point: While the Boeing repair shops may be kept spotless and clean, the amount of activity going on does create a similar impression of a "mess" to an outside observer. The vari
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When you enter a computer shop and see computer cases stacked to the roof, overhanging you, endangering you with colla
Now where are my mod points... (Score:2)
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As others posted here, neatness and organization star
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Say it with me: "The plural of anecdote is not data."
I can certainly believe this (Score:2)
I am probably on the "slob" side of things.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, if everything goes well then NOT taking the time to follow proper procedures will save you loads of time. However, proper procedures are there because when things go wrong (and they always do) you save more than just time. While the study may try to account for the time saved by being neat as not overcoming the time lost, a straight time-to-time comparison just doesn't cut it. For example, on Project A the Project Manager ensures that everyone follows a strict quality assurance plan. On Project B they let everyone handle their own quality and just trust that it is happening. Project A takes two weeks longer to deliver than originally anticipated because of some random occurence. Project B was affected by the same random occurence but launched early because they didn't go through a quality assurance process. Client suddenly realizes that Project B only half works and fumes but there's time to fix it. Project B then launches on-time (instead of early) after fixes. Even assuming Project B doesn't require additional fixes, Project A is better off because the client received a quality product the first time.
And furthermore, saying neat squashes creativity is the true slobs excuse for not trying. If your creative process is so fragile that it requires things to be cluttered all over the place, you're creative value is NILL.
Anyway, I doubt there will be too many people here who agree with this study, though there can certainly be cases where neatness is taken too far.
It's not a cluttered mess. (Score:5, Funny)
Yay! (Score:2)
This goes along with a sign I used to have (Score:2)
Messy desk owners unite!
I admint... (Score:2)
3D spacial awareness and messiness (Score:2)
Cleaning can be costly (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cleaning can be costly (Score:4, Funny)
NAPO? (Score:2, Funny)
Don't bother to RTFA. That was the only interesting thing in what is an incredibly lame piece of writing (presumably with a worse book to come).
So, now that I have saved you some time, clean your desk!
Neatness vs Creativity (Score:4, Insightful)
My mother was a neat freak. A place for everything, and everything in its place. She could never understand how I knew where everything was in my piles of messes. Nor could she understand how I saw patterns in the seemingly random piles of stuff.
The time it finally hit me, was when I was looking for one thing or another (I don't remember the specifics, this was 25-30 years ago), I saw two things together, which suddenly gave me a brilliant idea of combination.
Now, if everything was in its place
Its like that movie Working Girl where the Melanie Griffith's charactor describes putting two un-related items together to solve a problem. In that case it was a wedding and someone wanting to get into TV Station Ownership.
Creativity often requires the serendipity of a confluence of unrelated items.
Messy me, tidy wife (Score:5, Funny)
Me [settling down to watch a movie]: Where is the HMDI lead?
Her Wherever you last left it.
Me I left it on the floor behind the TV.
Her Well I haven't touched it.
Me You must have, it can't have moved itself.
Her I definately haven't moved it. You're always loosing things.
Me Do you even know what it is?
Her What is it?
Me It's a black cable. It was on the floor behind the TV.
Her Oh, I might have put it in one of the boxes in the shed.
Me [angry] So now I've got to put my shoes on and go out into the cold to look through all the boxes in the shed!
Her Don't blame me! You're the untidy one that is always loosing things...
It's not a pile! (Score:2)
Files further down on the stack are, of course, compressed.
=Smidge=
Two kinds of Messy (Score:2)
For some people, the "mess" is actually a highly efficient personal organizing system. These people have huge stacks of papers in seemingly random locations, but they know exactly where a particular document is within those stacks and piles. If someone were to go in and "organize" their office, they would be completely lost and their productivity would suffer (as described in the article).
Then there are other people (lik
Prediction (Score:2)
i am neither one (Score:2)
garbage (Score:2)
That's why (Score:2)
some people need order, some dont. (Score:2)
I have a really good memory. I rarely take notes and I seldom need to reference old documents as I am able to pull information out of my h
How's that saying go ? (Score:2)
The Wife (Score:3, Interesting)
However, she is the most productive worker in her department... as long as her desk stays organized.
If things get slightly out of order, it takes her several hours to get things back the way she wants it, and occasionally she feels that her design isn't 100% efficient, so she'll reorganize. Once she's satisfied, she switches into high speed and rarely makes mistakes.
At home, her desk is a mess. Go figure
Re:Well yeah... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Just as disorganized as we need to be (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a visual learner, I can "see" where I left a item and can find it quickly. Thus, my desk looks cluttered. But I know where everything is. So, it isn't messy, it just doesn't look organized according to someone else's definition. We are all individuals and it is a tad unfair to expect all of us to fit one mold for what is considered organized.
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To add to this, I can't count the number of times where I've been at work in the evening/weekend, and some important piece of data (phone number, file name from some bizarre problem a week ago, you name it) was written down on a scrap of paper, and driving back home was NOT an option.
30 second phone call to the S.O., complete directions down to the colour of the paper, approximate size, location, what's on top of or underneath it, which side of the paper it's written on, what other scribbles are
Another study that tells us what we already know.. (Score:2)
Just like all things, being moderately clean but not overdoing it will prove the best method. There's nothing wrong with having a bit of clutter, but everybody can be certain that a desk with several stacks (or simply a huge pile) of paper, folders, candy bar wrappers, CD's, pictures of family, nude magazines, post-it notes, immigrants (how did this one get in there?), and Pens where the girls clo
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Re:I am a slob (Score:5, Insightful)
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