How Clutter Affects Your Brain (and What You Can Do About It)

Lifehacker ^ | 7/5/2013 | Mikael Cho

[crazycatlady]

Or stack of stuff, as Rush would say.

[WhirlwindAttack]

bump

[Pelham]

ccl, next time you have a neat-freak heroin addict trying to sort out your kitchen pin them down with your best santoku knife and force them to repeat ‘mise en place’ until it sinks in.

[RegulatorCountry]

Kafkaesque sense of humor you’ve got there.

[TChad]

Bump for categorizing and saving to the appropriate folder later.

[Veggie Todd]

I need to add this to my collection of stuff...

LOL Good one!

[dennisw]

ping

[Skooz]

bump for later

[Fresh Wind]

I’m the technological equivalent of Charles Schulz’s Pig-pen character.

But instead of a cloud of dust, I am followed by a heap of electronics stuff. That heap will follow me until the day I die, then the heap will attach itself to whoever gets to clean out my house.

Life is great!

[Fresh Wind]

[Popman]

Bm

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

For instance, if you look at this photo of the home office of Steve Jobs, it’s not exactly the picture you’d expect of a zen-like visionary obsessed with less:

He has books. Books are not clutter. Never.

And no that does not just apply to text books. Any book no matter how bad can spark ideas.

Books for the most part get carried out of my house for only three reasons, I am moving or I got more then one copy or (most common) I bought it to sell.

[Chickensoup]

bttt

[odawg]

The desk—it looks like I have at least one thing in common with Einstein.

[MaggiesPitchfork]

I decluttered a few years back when I moved from a house to an apartment. I’m a crafter, so I’m always in danger of clutter glut. I’m pretty good now at keeping it at bay. I must’ve given thousands “worth” of craft supplies to a local church before I moved. It hurt, but no way I was taking it with me. I’ve also ditched forums and sites where liberals show up and spew nonsense, meaning I had to give up Facebook except for family. Ugh, I know too many liberals - they’re gone from my life and I feel better!

[GOPJ]

One example that comes to mind, from the book, is how penicillin was discovered because the discoverer took a trip for a few weeks, and as usual had left the remains of his lunch on the workbench. Years later, when his cluttered mess of a lab was made an exhibit, he was asked what he might have accomplished if he’d just kept everything neat and organized. “Nothing.”

Great story Civ...

[goodnesswins]

Hey...that looks like my office...except I also have a desktop computer...most of the clutter in our house is reading and writing material...would be much worse without computers which to me are great libraries!

[Fresh Wind]

And Einstein organizes his bookshelves exactly like I do!

I’d love to know what he’s thinking about. Is it some new quantum physics theory, or is he trying to remember where he left his checkbook?

[PreciousLiberty]

save for later

[crazycatlady]

Thanks. I currently have my own kitchen and hope to from now on.