Messy desks and the myth of the perfect workspace
a moodboard, because no one's desk actually looks like that
Whenever I see one of those ‘here’s my workspace’ posts with the perfect photos of a sleek, clean, and pristine desk, I vom a little.
Everything is super shiny and outta-the-box new and way too…glossy??
Surely, real people do not live this way?
My desk?
My desk is a mess.
There’s a good chance yours is too and ya know what? That’s great.
In fact, I feel like our culture’s fixation on things being perfect and clean and ordered is a big part of why we’ve become so obsessed with tools that promise optimization and productivity. “Finally, something to help me get all of this in order,” we think to ourselves, “then, once that’s done, I can get to work.”
Except that day never comes.
Embrace the chaos.
Bless this mess.
Time and time again I find that sitting in the messy discomfort of not-yet-knowing what an essay might become is where the best stuff happens.
Or as
so perfectly put, Makers Gotta Mess.There’s nothing inherently wrong with clean. But a, “…societally-induced value judgement on “clean” vs. “messy” has however lodged itself deep within us,” as
wrote in The Mess of a Creative Space.And from that shame, we perform perfection.
So, we are told to be ‘authentic.’
But what is ‘authentic’? Does such a thing even exist?
So which is it?
Is authenticity the goal or itself a performance?
Still, I have no answer.
And maybe that’s the answer.
Maybe we feel most like ourselves when we transcend the self entirely?
Maybe in order to find ourselves we must lose ourselves?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Either way, the things we get lost inside of — art and love and sport and comedy and that feeling when everyone in the restaurant is singing “happy birthday” to the one lady at the one table even though no one knows her — that’s the good stuff.
The messy stuff of a life well lived.
In an effort to honor and embrace the mess as much as the clean, please find below a moodboard exploring these ideas + some photos of my very messy and no-longer embarrassing space.
The cards above plus many, many more can be found in my “myth of the perfect, clean workspace” collection.
PS: I want to see your Messy Space!!
I have a feeling that I’m not the only one out there with a messy space. If you are also a part of the MSEU (Messy Space Extended Universe), I would love to see it!
Simply e-mail me at alex@sublime.app with the details and/or photos. Maybe if there are enough people who share, we’ll even feature some in an upcoming newsletter.
In other news…
“Build a soulful, second brain”
Huge thank you to
for this amazing write-up in Recomendo, the newsletter she runs with Kevin Kelly and Mark Frauenfelder:Sublime is a personal knowledge management tool crafted with soul. I've been allowing myself to digitally hoard all the beautiful words and insightful advice I come across online. Everything you save in Sublime becomes a card, and these cards can be organized into collections.
There's also a communal aspect to Sublime; you can follow other users and search public collections for cards to add to your library. I love that it encourages connections, synchronicities, and learning. I imported all of my Readwise book highlights and have been using Sublime as a literary Pinterest.
Building Sublime with vibes
Earlier this week,
from interviewed on Sublime’s product development philosophy and the role *vibes* play in building Sublime. Check it out here:
Mine is an organized mess…meaning I know where things are in the mess…when everything is neatly organized, I can’t find anything 😂
I think Oliver Burkeman tackles this so well in 4,000 weeks. You'll *never* clear the decks, and yet this is exactly what so many tools promise. And you'll become a massive tool if you buy into it. It's the idea that you might finally arrive, that you might perfect it, that is so seductive. But it isn't even what you really want! "Dan, died 87, leaves behind 18 children and an immaculate working space"