Just about everything people have said so far (with the exception of Alioxen) about messiness could be said about obsessive neatness. Some neat freaks take tidiness to such extremes that their living spaces feel like museums. Such places make anyone but neat freaks feel like outsiders excluded from any participation in the living arrangement. Obsessive cleanliness and neatness is just as akin to a mental illness as complete and utter disorderliness and dirtiness.

As for Nature’s “messiness”. Well, she IS messy! She drops stuff all over the place, has exploding volcanic fits, burns forests, floods and quakes land, splits trees apart with lightning bolts, erodes rock, turns everything upside-down with hurricanes and tornadoes, etc. And then calm returns and she grows back again until the next time.

Just like my house . . .

In answer to messy people in neat houses. That depends on the house. One friend had a house like a showroom. Well decorated, meticulous. It was gorgeous, but I didn’t want to participate with the environment at all, lest it become imperfect somehow, and more than that, I didn’t want her to be uncomfortable with me, having to follow behind and ensure that i had coasters, that there wasn’t any water droplets on the sink, that i didn’t knock any mud on the carpet when i took my shoes off. I thought ‘geez, all the things she’s missing out on by cleaning SO much.’ I felt sad for her, and would rather we went out so she didn’t have to be attentive, and I didn’t have to feel the proverbial bull in the china shop.

My other friend, no worries. Always tidy, but not hyper-vigilant. I never felt uncomfortable at her place, because she would let us help her clean up after dinner, and wouldn’t worry if we missed a coaster (not that we did, because she’d leave them out for us), and she wouldn’t get up spontaneously mid-conversation to tidy up. So it’s about the atmosphere of the house, not it’s clutter!

sorry bout the long post, but there’s my two cents!

I’m in the process of decluttering so I watched to see if they had any tips – not really but it was motivation for me to keep going!

One clutteree said (approximately): “I don’t see the point of dealing with each paper each day. I find that if I leave a piece a paper for a couple of years it is much easier to know if it is garbage or not. It’s just not worth my time to decide this every day.” [She is currently cleaning her office because the location is changing.]

Another point was made by the film maker. He said (again approximately): “I am an artsy person. I keep all these papers because I am thinking about them. When I stumble across things while searching for something else, I see the connections between ideas better.”

But the truly amazing part was when each clutteree was given a treasure to search for. The find times were very short (under 5 mins) except for the guy that had multiple apartments of memorabilia (who never found his item).

As for living in that home office-I don’t think you could pay me enough money to live there. It would be enormously stressful and I don’t think I could tolerate not being able to find things, not being able to find a clear place to work, not being able to see my to do list with all of the distractions of the messy papers. There is no way that I could be creative and write my blog posts in there.

First of all, YOUR freedom impacts the people who have to live with you. Unfortunately, kids don’t have a choice.

Secondly, YOUR freedom violates fire codes.

Thirdly, YOUR freedom is also a pest magnet. Even if you don’t have roaches or rats, you will definitely end up with silverfish and spiders.

I’m sorry, it’s just selfish.

I wonder: when “messy” people visit “neat” homes, do they feel their creativity stifled? I tend to think they envy the calmness and order, but maybe that is just my bias.”

When I visit a “neat” home, I feel cramped and constrained. I can not stand things like aligned magazines and the likes. If nothing is “out of place”, a home feels sterile to me, not lived in.

I have lived in total disarray, with everything everywhere. I have lived reasonably neat (my dad likes things that way ^^). To be honest, neither extremes feel good to me, I like things in the middle. Some mess, and some order.

If you want to compare it to nature, Balance is nature’s way. Balance is the key to everything.

What I got from the documentary is rather than feeling like a failure for never living up to the uncluttered ideal, I feel that I shouldn’t kick myself so much on those off days (weeks) where things pile up.

I can’t say that I am happily messy though like the people in this documentary. Some of them seemed organized in their mess. I don’t know where everything is. I waste time looking for things when I don’t put them away. I don’t like the way mess looks, but I agree with the comment about the amount of time it would take me to perfectly file everything. I will stop kicking myself for the few piles I have and spend my time on more meaningful activities.

I loved what Melissa’s comment: “a rumpled mess of a house feels like a big warm hug from a best friend where a uber-clean house feels like a tepid kiss on the cheek from that uptight relative”. I hope you don’t mind. I will write that down to remind myself that I shouldn’t be striving for uber-clean (although I want it tidy enough to happily receive unexpected guests…warmly).

I also love what Alison said: “I see no clutter as freedom, freedom to pick up and go, freedom to let people into my home, freedom to let go of the past and live in the present.”

I am striving for somewhere in between (leaning to the unclutterer side), hence my loving this site.

“If it makes you sad, if you can’t work in your mess, if you feel your life is overwhelming, then you are too messy,” Freed said.”

While I was naturally messy, I did find it depressing and embarrassing. Finally changing my ways has been a huge load off of my mind.