The Messy Creative — Myth or Reality?
By: Fiona Cameron Lister
Tags: Creativity, Psychology, Self, Work, Culture

The conclusions were interesting. Being in an orderly environment tended to result in people being more generous, making healthier choices and generally behaving in a way that society deems “good.” They chose the established product more often. Their uses of the ping pong ball were deemed less creative. In short, you could interpret them as being more predictable and conventional.

On the other hand, the ones in the messy room, while making less healthy choices and being less generous with their donations, aced it on the ping pong ball task and on being prepared to try an innovative product. They were behaving in a more creative and less conventional way, apparently.

As someone who would have tidied the unkempt room then grabbed an armful of chocolate on the way to the patent office with my design for a spherical tiny house for voles, I am not sure what to make of this.

Clearly, writers of articles on clutter and creativity love this study as despite being quite small, it is regularly hauled out as proof six years later. I can shut up with the carping, having just done the same.

They are now continuing the research to see if it applies to virtual environments too, for example websites. Its implications seem to be that even when we are not in control of the space, its degree of tidiness affects our behaviour.

This would seem to suggest that creativity is not something you have or don’t have, but can be influenced by externals.

Hmmm.

(Pause to think what to write next.)

(Pause to deliberately muss up my desk a bit in case it incites ideas.)

(Pause to place my iPad, notebook and coffee mat back in a straight line.)

So, let’s look at a book.

British economist and journalist Tim Harford is an advocate of mess, disruption and chaos to spark new ideas. In his book Messy: How to be creative and resilient in a tidy-minded world, he decides to investigate “silo thinking”. Named for grain silos, this is the tendency for organizations to divide themselves into self-contained, inward-looking sub-units. Unsurprisingly, they don’t care to share, except with people from their own silo.

It is comforting to discover that Tim is by nature an organised and tidy chap, but the research he undertakes for the book forces him to have a rethink.

It reminds me of a phenomenon in Italy called campanilismo, where people have an exaggerated loyalty to their town or village and hate everyone else. The term comes from the campanile or bell tower, of their local church. I have seen this in action. My farming neighbour in Umbria once told me not to trust someone because “she comes from Villastrada.” Villastrada was half a kilometre from our village.

Some Finnish silos which also manage to demonstrate creativity. How genius is that? Thanks to Pixabay!

It is comforting to discover that Tim is by nature an organised and tidy chap, but the research he undertakes for the book forces him to have a rethink. He becomes less judgemental of the mess of others, including his own kids and their untidy bedrooms, as he starts to understand that the untidiness has its own internal logic for the person who created it.

He points out the flaw of grouping all types of situations together and treating them in the same way. An untidy desk is not the same as an untidy operating theatre.

He also questions the causal nature of mess. An untidy office may not cause stress. The projects and work that created the chaos in the first place are probably the real culprits.

His take on judgement and guilt is interesting. He thinks we are often hard on ourselves and others because society expects us to be neat and tidy. (Think frantic cleaning up when unexpected guests arrive.) This desire for personal peace and the zen calm of the curated space may explain the current surge of interest in Japanese clutter-clearing queen Marie Kondo.

But he says that although untidiness can be a negative thing, it may also be the best way to organise information that is itself inherently messy.

I will, however, point out that while he has total respect for people’s right to personal mess, this does not apply to communal space.

Is Messiness in Your DNA?

This seems to be an important question, often skipped by the articles I found. I unearthed a 2003 New York Times piece, citing Dr. Theodore Shapiro, professor of psychiatry at New York Weill Cornell Center. He says: “Messiness is just the natural state of all children until age 6 or so when they develop the requisite motor and behavioural skills to be able to impose order on their worlds.” He goes on to say that being messy is one way that children can defy their parents. That makes sense. Tidiness is learned behaviour.

We are all born messy! Photo courtesy of Pixabay.

I found another New York Times article from 2008, I’m Messy. It’s in my DNA. Deal With It written by Susan Stewart. She describes in smug detail how she had even managed to convert her husband to her messy ways: “Getting him to this point took years of work, but then nobody ever said marriage was easy.” The reason I persevere with this irritating narrative is that she says: “Maybe I have a disability. Visual-spatial disorder. Google it, you’ll see. People with this disorder lack the gene for filing.”

I did Google it. It does exist, although making light of something where people lack the ability to tell where things are in space, including their own body parts, seems a cheap way of justifying slovenliness.

Anyway, unless you do have an actual disorder, her title is wrong. Messiness isn’t in your DNA. It seems to be a mix of a choice and certain personality traits as well as the inclination to please or to defy those who bring you up.

The Serious Bit

Some people may also have a higher mess/tidiness threshold than others. You may do your best work surrounded by piles of notes, oblivious to the dirty mugs and piles of discarded clothes. Or you may not be able to switch on the computer until the space has been cleaned to hospital standards. We are all different, thank goodness.

If it upsets you and makes you guilty or depressed, it is not a sign of creativity, it is a problem.

But a sudden change from orderly to disorderly can be a symptom of illness. Depression, for example, or dementia. The most extreme manifestation of messiness is hoarding, where people can literally die from being suffocated by their own stuff.

Then there are people who are too tidy and unable to function unless their environment is pristine and germ-free. This may indicate a more serious condition. One symptom of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is obsessive cleaning, for example.

How you feel about your own messiness is important. If it upsets you and makes you guilty or depressed, it is not a sign of creativity, it is a problem.

So What’s the Big Deal About Creativity Anyway?

One underlying belief I have noticed in the creativity/messiness debate is that if you can loosen your metaphorical stays and go with the flow, you will be a better person. Susan Stewart alludes to this when she writes: “Some people, after giving a dinner party, cannot even think of going to sleep until every plate, every glass, every evidence of the evening’s merriment, is safely back in its proper place. Others — some might say those who are more joyous and life-affirming — like to drag out the process of cleaning…”

Yes, we’ve got the message. We might as well just crawl into our sad dishwashers and drown ourselves.

This seems to apply to creativity too, which is almost always viewed as the Gift of all Gifts. Those in possession of this elusive and enviable ability can be forgiven anything. “He may have been a serial-killer, but omg, he was SOOOO CREATIVE!”

Creative out-of-the-box thinking is essential for sparking new art, new ideas and new inventions. But once we have the spark, the flame has to be fanned.

I am proud to be a creative person myself. I paint pictures of big birds and insects, I spin “art yarn” (a euphemism for erratic strands with lumps in), I make twig weavings. I have even constructed a felted crow. But I question the unchallenged status of creativity as the King (or Queen or God) of Talents.

In fact, the assumption that it is a talent is also wrong. Psychology Today says: “The truth is that creativity can be acquired and honed at any age or experience level.”

So, a skill then.

Woolly proof of my creativity — a felted crow. Picture: Fiona Cameron Lister

There is little doubt that creative out-of-the-box thinking is essential for sparking new art, new ideas and new inventions. But once we have the spark, the flame has to be fanned. And the flame-fanners have the less sexy job of financing, planning, constructing, marketing, advertising, selling and insuring the Creative Thing so it doesn’t fizzle out and turn to ash.

The truth is, we need all the skills to work together to bring something to life and keep it there. Creativity is just the beginning.

Takeaways

This started out as quite a short piece but expanded as I learned more. I am now questioning quite a lot of my rather rigid beliefs. The key points are as follows:

1. We are all born messy.

2. Creativity is a skill which can be learned and practised.

3. The environment, real and virtual, can impact our creativity.

4. Disordered spaces can encourage inventive thinking.

5. Ordered spaces can encourage focus and logical thinking.

6. The creative/messy delineation is artificial. It is a spectrum.

7. Some people’s tolerance to tidiness/mess is higher than others.

8. Extremes of messiness and tidiness can be signs of underlying illness.

9. If your tidiness or messiness makes you upset, it is time to do something.

10. Some areas of life demand order and tidiness. Like operating theatres. And shared space.

11. We could all benefit from trying our “opposite” trait. Consciously try to be tidier/messier.

12. I hate a list with uneven numbers.

13. I must try to overcome this.

14. I can’t.

So, there you have it.

And as always after a takeaway, please tidy everything up and put it in a bag.

That means you too, Leonardo.