For me keeping my desk and surroundings clean is about removing visual distractions.

uhmmm… Let’s face it… Some folks thrive on complete chaos and disorder. An attorney friend of mine loves the craziness of running around with stalks of file boxes strewn helter-skelter around his office. His work, personal and family life schedule reflects this crazed, apparently irrational style… but in the end he always brings sanity to the process by making spectacular briefs and closing arguments for his clients.

I think most of us could not possible live this way for more than one or two days without going into a complete meltdown. So I think the questions is: “What is the right balance for each of us?”

Hard to know… some individuals need to be more organized. Some need to be less rigid.

There is a story I heard once about Alexander Calder (this, like many stories, may not be at all true, but still a good story.) Calder was being visited in his extremely cluttered art studio and was asked for a phone number. Calder immediately went to his desk brimming with scrapes of paper, pencils and art. He reached into one little niche and pulled out a the phone number from what appeared to be complete bedlam. He had everything completely under control… I often lose things when i decide to get more organized.