BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Creativity Creative clutter

Join me in our discussion for this week:

How does clutter affect your creativity? Do you enjoy having a lot of creative �mess� around you to stimulate your imagination? Or does a tidy work space allow inspiration to flow more freely?

Let me know what you think.

If I don't have a tidy work space then I am distracted thinking that I should really be working on cleaning up the mess around me!

Hi conniem

Do you ever lose things that you've tidied away? I had to come up with a notebook to record where I put things otherwise I would never find anything that didn't have a logical folder to go to! But give me a pile of paperwork that's been there for a while and I can usually dig straight to whatever I need.

LOL, some days I would loose my head if it wasn't attached to my body!! I think my problem is not enough hours in the day!

For some reason, walking into my home or office when it is cluttered instantly puts me into a bad mood. Maybe it is because I know I must address the clutter before I can do anything else.

Hi bepart

I usually like to get chores out of the way first before I start my day, so that I don't have to think of it later. But I do set myself a time limit - 20 minutes or an hour - because there always seems to be one more chore to do, and I would never get anything else done!

That's a great idea. Setting a time limit allows you to see the end which makes it seem less daunting.

....off to the store for a timer :-)

I set a time limit for surfing the Internet too, because I could spend hours online and not notice it...

I would LOVE to have a clutter free home - but its going to take a hypnotherapist to change me at this point! And it's like you said Elle (I think) i can find it just fine, until I try to clean it up, then I have no idea where I put it away!

Do y'all think hypnotherapy might work? It would make my husband a very happy man! Maybe I should ask the FBI or CIA?

LOL. My husband usually tidies up before I get around to it, which means I have even less chance of finding things he's put away (or put in the recycle bin).

I would need lots of therapy to correct my clutter habit. I usually start a project and everything I am using for it will be right by my chair but when I am done I put it all away so if something takes me 3 weeks the clutter will sit there for 3 weeks, even if I use something and won't be using it again for that project, I still won't put it away until I am completely finished.

Creative clutter is like flowers or leaves in a garden - necessary for me to get the mind going. But it has to say below a certain level - a dash of chaos is like tabasco in the soup, for me a necesssary ingredient.

I agree, when I (seldom) do get around to it and put things away, I then have NO idea where anything is. Total frustration!

I think a lot of this is just the creative temperament from reading this post and also from friends I know who are the same way.

I used to be the exact same way but the kids have grown and gone off to college, then we moved. It has taken a monumental effort on my part to correct this, but I have to because it started "cluttering up my mind". I probably just did not notice this when I was raising the kids. So now everything is neat and where it should be, and my husband has turned into me. And I into him. Scary.

I like that analogy zen!

Ok Firefly, so you're saying as soon as all my kids are grown and off to college, then I'll be neat.

My youngest is 2!!!!!!!!
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You'll be neat... and you'll have turned into your husband!

We have one child left at home (3 are grown and gone) and then the grandbaby came! So much for all my order, I babysit and it is the best job I could ever have! Maybe I can train her to be neat LOL...

It's fine as long as you don't grow a beard...

For me to truely get a lot done I need to have everthying close at hand, which often means piles of paper and stacks of books. I tend to be pretty messy, so it always feels really good when I can put away an entire stack of books or a few folders worth of notes.

Me too. I tend to be lazy [imageBellaOnline ALERT: Raw URLs are not allowed in these forums for security reasons. Please use UBB code. If you don't know how to do UBB code just post here for help - we will help out!

I like a clutter free workspace but I also have organized clutter. My husband is a tiny hurricane in his own right. He can be in a room for 15 minutes and it is a disaster when he walks out. So I'm organized and he is not. I had to deprogram myself so it would not drive me nuts. I've learned to overlook somethings by allowing it to stay there but organizing it. It seems to work without distracting me but I'm longing for the day that everything has its place and he remembers where it goes.
Grace

Your husband sounds like me! Although, we now live in a smaller house than we used to so I've now got myself into a habit of putting things away after I've used them. It's not as easy to shove the mess under or behind something as it used to be! (I was delighted when hubby's folks came to visit and my mum-in-law said "Oh, your house is so neat, I feel I don't want to touch anything in case I put it back in the wrong place!" - but then after a few hours it was back to normal... :-)