There’s magic in mess: Why you should embrace a disorderly desk

Didn't realise Tim Harford had a website. More or Less is an excellent programme, I listen weekly.

I've found the easiest stuff to organize is the stuff I no longer have. I used to feel obligated to file a lot of stuff that came in the mail, like addendums to insurance policies, annual reports for stocks or funds, credit card statements, etc. But it dawned on me long ago that I virtually never need to refer back to that stuff. So it goes straight into the trash. When the bookshelves in my office fill up, I cull the books and donate them to Goodwill or sell them to a used bookstore. Old clothes, shoes, etc. are routinely purged from my life.

Some people love to acquire new things. I love getting rid of old things that no longer serve a purpose in my life.

I usually take a photo of documents that there's a small chance I would need in the future. This way, they take up a very small amount of space on my phone but in case I need something again the photo will usually be sufficient and I can search by date to find it.

A friend of mine described work in the planning dept for major manufacturer. On the shop floor where equipment, parts shelves, tools all belonged were outlined in tape. This would show if something was out of place and keep the floor orderly.

However at his desk he was also required to outline everything in tape. His stapler, keyboard, mousepad, laptop, wires running across were all outlined on the desk in tape. They would have desk audits, and any repeated deviation, where an item was outside its outline, would result in HR action.

I wanted to take this opportunity to give a shameless endorsement of Google's Inbox app.

I prefer something like what the article called the "piler" strategy. I don't like spending precious time and energy organizing things. But the problem is if I have too many things in front of me, I can't concentrate. My anxiety builds up. My creativity vanishes.

The Inbox app lets me reach an optimal balance of order and productivity. It's changed my life. And ever since, I've been proselytizing it.

This post thinks that you have to trade off order and productivity, but why not both? It now sounds like a false trade-off to me.

(PS Using search rather than categories and folders for email and files also was a big win but I'm not as excited about that now because that was years ago.)