![]() ![]() It’s almost too simplistic to classify people as either pilers or filers, so a research fellow at the University of Surrey in the UK, Lily Bernheimer came up with an evidence-based breakdown that combined insights from personality research, environmental psychology and ‘big five’ personality traits: extroversion agreeableness conscientiousness neuroticism and openness to experience. So why is it so difficult to keep things tidy for some people? And with the rising wave of novel means of re-defining work with ABW, how will that affect the piler and filer? Will you be tagged on social media as a #messydesk freak or a surgically pristine #cleardesk acolyte? It dawned on me that I was happy to be categorised as a piler rather than an unsatisfied wound up filer. Take the office, where research shows that people are more productive and creative if they are allowed to surround themselves with a bit of clutter…. But in some areas of life, too much tidiness makes things rigid, fragile and sterile. In Harford’s view, we would all benefit from being a bit messy. Salvation came by avidly reading Tim Harford’s (The Undercover Economist from the FT) new book Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives. Saying that, how many of us work in pristine operating theatres with robotics or cockpits ticking off checklists before the automatic pilots takes over, versus chaotic everyday offices undergoing massive transformation with ABW ie activity based working and the stresses of working in global teams? So have the forces of tidiness marched too far? Having trained as a surgeon, I readily admit the benefits of a neat operating theatre and marvel at the tidiness of hi tech airline cockpits with their LED screens and tablet technology replacing paper. The tangle of computer cables, paper piles, random post it notes, and USB sticks littered everywhere….yet somehow I still intuitively knew where and how to locate the important things. I admired the neat clean lines and the absence of paper piles for about a week, before a slight dread and shifty unease with my short lived virtuosity returned with the inexorable mess that duly ensued. ![]() Having read Marie Kondos The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, visited the popular website and with the luxury of time on sabbatical to be on a virtuous self improvement craze…it was tediously painful to tidy the perennially messy home office desk. ![]()
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