In Defense of Mess
I'll concede one very simple point: the houses you see on "Hoarders" can be pretty creepy.
Personally, I think the people portrayed on these shows are on the fringes. They are people who have gradually learned to live at one extreme. I really don't think anyone should base their lifestyle around tons of clutter.
But it does amaze me that they counter these extremes by bringing in people at the other extreme. The National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) is comprised of people who seem to think that everything in the world should be stacked, categorized, filed, and organized neatly. To have an appearance to the contrary is supposedly a sign of a tremendous character flaw.
Of course they'd say that; for an hourly consulting fee, you can hire them to help you organize your home or office.
As a culture, we seem to have a compulsion with putting things in order, and taking great pains to maintain that order. Given that the natural order of the universe seems to be disorganized and messy, I'd say this is pretty odd.
There is a critical distinction between clutter and filth. Personally, I take pains to keep dust from accruing and mold from blooming. But my apartment and my desk at work are not strangers to disorganized heaps of papers, books, and other goodies.
Or so they would appear. One thing about mess is that it's subjective. I tend to keep a pretty messy looking desk, but the stacks of papers are sorted. The items of higher priority tend to gravitate toward the top, and I tend to know where they exist relative to each other. If someone else had to find something on my desk, they would probably have to go through the entire stack to find it.
The alternative, of course, is to get a folder rack, put the documents into folders, and keep them in there. This certainly organizes every by categories...but who's to say the categories aren't arbitrary? Would anyone else with no knowledge of my organization system be able to find something with greater ease than the aimless stacks?
In short, one man's mess is another man's order. This isn't that big of a surprise. The majority of couples report that the state of their shared living space is a common cause of fights. This has certainly been true for me in all my past living arrangements; I seem to have a higher tolerance of clutter than a lot of people. And I've met people who I think keep some pretty disgusting lifestyle habits. Eye of the beholder, I suppose.
Objectively, I'm not sure where the line should be drawn (or if it even ought to be drawn), but it is true that keeping constant order has one major drawback: it takes effort. And it's definitely arguable that past a certain point, diminishing returns kick in and the extra effort stops being worth the trouble.
So it's a trade-off: time versus tidy. And like most people, I'm so short on time that I'll be damned if I'm going to let some obsessive compulsive neat freak tell me I need to spend a healthy portion of it keeping my life in order.
Personally, I think the people portrayed on these shows are on the fringes. They are people who have gradually learned to live at one extreme. I really don't think anyone should base their lifestyle around tons of clutter.
But it does amaze me that they counter these extremes by bringing in people at the other extreme. The National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) is comprised of people who seem to think that everything in the world should be stacked, categorized, filed, and organized neatly. To have an appearance to the contrary is supposedly a sign of a tremendous character flaw.
Of course they'd say that; for an hourly consulting fee, you can hire them to help you organize your home or office.
As a culture, we seem to have a compulsion with putting things in order, and taking great pains to maintain that order. Given that the natural order of the universe seems to be disorganized and messy, I'd say this is pretty odd.
There is a critical distinction between clutter and filth. Personally, I take pains to keep dust from accruing and mold from blooming. But my apartment and my desk at work are not strangers to disorganized heaps of papers, books, and other goodies.
Or so they would appear. One thing about mess is that it's subjective. I tend to keep a pretty messy looking desk, but the stacks of papers are sorted. The items of higher priority tend to gravitate toward the top, and I tend to know where they exist relative to each other. If someone else had to find something on my desk, they would probably have to go through the entire stack to find it.
The alternative, of course, is to get a folder rack, put the documents into folders, and keep them in there. This certainly organizes every by categories...but who's to say the categories aren't arbitrary? Would anyone else with no knowledge of my organization system be able to find something with greater ease than the aimless stacks?
In short, one man's mess is another man's order. This isn't that big of a surprise. The majority of couples report that the state of their shared living space is a common cause of fights. This has certainly been true for me in all my past living arrangements; I seem to have a higher tolerance of clutter than a lot of people. And I've met people who I think keep some pretty disgusting lifestyle habits. Eye of the beholder, I suppose.
Objectively, I'm not sure where the line should be drawn (or if it even ought to be drawn), but it is true that keeping constant order has one major drawback: it takes effort. And it's definitely arguable that past a certain point, diminishing returns kick in and the extra effort stops being worth the trouble.
So it's a trade-off: time versus tidy. And like most people, I'm so short on time that I'll be damned if I'm going to let some obsessive compulsive neat freak tell me I need to spend a healthy portion of it keeping my life in order.