“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?” - Albert Einstein
A focused mind.
There’s magic in mess: Why you should embrace a disorderly desk
71–80 of 95 posts
Re: There’s magic in mess: Why you should embrace a disorderly desk
#72I want to print this out. Draw a giant middle finger on it. Then post it on the entry to my cube. So friggin badly.
Take that you neatniks.
Re: There’s magic in mess: Why you should embrace a disorderly desk
#73“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?” - Albert Einstein
A great quote, but another one that wasn't actually Einstein. Appears to be from Laurence Peter (eponym of the Peter Principle). reply
Makes sense, I don't like to imagine Einstein working at a desk but in front of a blackboard the size of a cinema screen.
Re: There’s magic in mess: Why you should embrace a disorderly desk
#74I 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 product…
Missing the eighth or tenth meeting invite because it was auto-filed as an 'update' and never notified me, as well as similar experiences with messages I consider 'important' put an end to Inbox for me. I did first try 'training' it by moving things where they should be, but Inbox never changed what it did.
Yeah this machine learning and personal assistant tech is on the ugly side of the uncanny valley right now. When we have the Star Trek computer then I'll get on board, but right now apps like Inbox flat out create more stress than save time.
Re: There’s magic in mess: Why you should embrace a disorderly desk
#75I feel like there's some parallel lurking here with software development. I've never seen a production codebase that doesn't have it's own share of clutter, mismash and rough edges similar to a disorganized desk. Moving business requirements, obscure edge cases, performance concerns all seem to creep into an "orderly" codebase. I don't think this applies to all software, things with a very long release/feedback cycle…
I had no idea that I would see this parallel as well when I started reading this article.
I'm in a similar situation at my current job, we've got a few guys that want to go really crazy with OOP concepts (design patterns, going overboard with new technologies) from the first sign of a new issue/feature.
It really causes a lot of problems though, when your business requirements change (or you encounter an edge case) and you need to redesign the entire codebase to account for it. They are literally grinding everything to a halt with this stuff, and I think their issues arise from a need to categorize everything in the codebase prematurely, before the solution has "evolved".
Thoughts?
Re: There’s magic in mess: Why you should embrace a disorderly desk
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, do you just track read-unread? Every email that is read has been pushed to a task management system? I know a lot of people with horrifically stuffed inboxes and I only consider one of them organized - the rest are prone to miss emails, or forget to do whatever they were asked because they read it and then it was in a giant bucket of unimportant stuff.
if youre in some kind of support, helpdesk, customerservice, projectmanagement, development scenario and you have it set up correctly, emails are mostly notifications that something happened in the tracking system. customers/employees only EVER email the abstraction layer, not personnel directly. you can either reply to the email and it gets automatically sorted by the software, or you can interact directly in the so…
I actually mean personal email, like trying to organize plans with my sister. My friends and family are somewhat resistant to task tracking software.
Re: There’s magic in mess: Why you should embrace a disorderly desk
#77In 2011, Whittaker and colleagues published a research paper with the title “Am I Wasting My Time Organizing Email?”. The answer is: yes, you are. People who use the search function find their email more quickly than those who click through carefully constructed systems of folders. I used to organize email into folders meticulously, later using tags and rules. What a complete waste of time. These days I refuse to spe…
> Here's another heresy I'm testing that I think may turn out to be true: Spending any effort whatsoever organizing files on your computer is equally worthless. As long as the proper files are in the backed up folders, I suspect your theory to hold true.
It depends.
As an housing architect is crutial to have all documents in a predictable order, specially when I don't work alone. A team of architects normally work in the same large set of files, so to simplify collaboration a good file naming system is mandatory.
Re: There’s magic in mess: Why you should embrace a disorderly desk
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do something similar: put in a pile and about once a month I scan the pile (I bought a printer with a paper-feed just for this), upload it to cloud storage, and date it.
The only step missing is OCR, so you can search on contents.
If you're using google drive, it automatically does OCR for you. So you just search for 'statement' and your bank statements show up.
I didn't know to be alarmed or happy when I first saw that feature.
I'm not sure it's an official feature, but it works for photos which are about a week old.
Re: There’s magic in mess: Why you should embrace a disorderly desk
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
if youre in some kind of support, helpdesk, customerservice, projectmanagement, development scenario and you have it set up correctly, emails are mostly notifications that something happened in the tracking system. customers/employees only EVER email the abstraction layer, not personnel directly. you can either reply to the email and it gets automatically sorted by the software, or you can interact directly in the so…
I actually mean personal email, like trying to organize plans with my sister. My friends and family are somewhat resistant to task tracking software.
i star things that need a second look. but again those are mostly from automated systems or companies.
humanhuman communication is almost always through messaging apps.
producthunt had this today https://www.producthunt.com/tech/owlie
Re: There’s magic in mess: Why you should embrace a disorderly desk
#80I 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 product…
What is the advantage of the Inbox App over just using the archive button and maintaining only a few important emails in the regular inbox? I did briefly try the Inbox app when it first came out but found the automatic sorting meant I occasionally missed important emails. If you use the regular inbox and the archive button you can at least see everything coming in and decide if it is important. I've been aggressive a…
Reminders and snoozing are key differences from gmail.
Also, I disabled bundling right away after I started using Inbox. The bundling is useful sometimes but I thought it more pain than it's worth. Perhaps that's why more people don't use Inbox.