Comments on: Pitfalls of creativity clutter

By: Andrea Kay Bloom Smith

Andrea Kay Bloom Smith — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:15:09 +0000

I’d like to 2nd Loren’s post!

I’m a creative, organized person due to my “project bags.”

As wall decoration and organization I have bags or large purses hung from one wall on hooks. Each bag hold a different set of crafts or projects. One example: I have one for swimming with goggles, ear plugs, my kick board, and the bag is made out of terry cloth, so it doubles as my towel. Another example: knitting & crotchet how-to book, a few skeins of yarn, and a few hooks.

These bags don’t take up floor space. They also encourage me to evaluate what I should keep or get rid of every time I get into them.

These bags work great for me, but does anyone have a suggestion for paper? I have colored papers from 5″X7″ to 2′X3′. I need to store them in an easily-accessible way. I have quite a collection because I try to only use recycled materials and I found a lot by a dumpster.

Thanks.

By: dtj

dtj — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:56:06 +0000

I’ve really taken to SpiritedAway on my mac. It automagically hides apps that haven’t been used in a while. My mac desktop unclutters itself. The downside is that eventually there gets to be too many hidden apps and performance gets spongy, so I have to go quit out of things, but its not too bad.

By: Loren

Loren — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:10:37 +0000

I’m a crafty-creative type person. I sew, crochet, knit, wood work, anything I can get my hand on really. 60% of these things are useful to me and the rest get given away. But a lot of these projects take a long time, more than just one sitting, and things like sewing can get really messy when the only area you have to do it is the middle of the living room floor. I started making ‘project bags’ so I can scoop up all the fabric scraps/yarn/hooks/needles/fasteners into one bag and toss it in the corner or closet until tomorrow, or next weekend, or after a run to the store and get the extra buttons that I need. I’ve got a lot of extra fabric shopping bags floating around and they come in handy for this, and it’s usually only two or three project bags floating around. Hanging them in the closet for a week doesn’t really hurt anything, and if I can’t find an empty bag for the current project I know I need to empty a couple bags out.
I would suggest pinning dates on the bags though, so that if you haven’t touched it in a month, or six months you can empty the bag and repurpose the things in it. Same for physical folders on your desk, and virtual ones on your desktop, check the time stamp on them and if you haven’t touched the folder in a while empty it or delete it.

By: William

William — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:53:05 +0000

I am of a different persuasion as far as the uses of clutter in a creative setting. In designing, creativity to me is about serendipitous discovery, about making almost-random associations with seemingly unrelated things that lead to some ‘eureka’ moment, when a problem is suddenly more well-defined or the set of possible design solutions becomes clearer. It doesn’t happen at a particular time and doesn’t happen on cue.

By eliminating from a creative environment and experience what one deems a priori to be unnecessary, the discovery space (i.e. the set of things that could potentially provide inspiration) becomes too limited for the wrong reasons.

That means to me that there are productive types of clutter and unproductive, and the unproductive ones are situations where physical things (pieces of paper, notebooks, etc) cover up the things I’m working on or cover up sources of inspiration. Good “clutter” provides the greatest potential for innovation, random association, and ultimately inspiration. Perhaps the productive types of “clutter” actually aren’t “clutter,” but that’s semantics.

I suppose the distinction is between creative sterility and performance-streamlined organization. I would argue “performance-streamlined” for designers and creatives is different from accountants, lawyers, and other professionals.

(I do have unclutter moments to clear my thoughts and reset my workspace, but that’s a strategic creative move as well…)

By: jp

jp — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:32:15 +0000

Sorry – That’s really just RE-cluttering – not uncluttering. It will all come back to haunt you in accumulating walls of clutter and the effects are felt regardless. Did you ever study feng shui?

The best solution is to remove the unnecessary completely out of your environment – it the trash can or recycler or thrift store or freecycle: not your attic or your basement or this Box you are building –or publish it and get it off your desk.

By: Alex Fayle

Alex Fayle — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:07:07 +0000

I like to create organized chaos. When the big things in life are organized and in most cases the details are kept in order, then the little things can get chaotic during a really productive creative moment (plus the chaos can create connections you might not have thought of in a totally ordered environment).

Cheers,
Alex

By: Joseph Z.

Joseph Z. — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:24:51 +0000

@Erin – Evernote looks pretty good. I haven’t had much luck with “clipping” programs in the past (like Google Notebook) but Evernote seems to be a clipping program on steroids. I like that I can drop in text files without opening them.

Thanks for the recommendation.

By: Erin Doland

Erin Doland — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:48:27 +0000

@Joseph Z. — Have you tried Evernote? It has been a huge help for me. I still create the dozens of documents, but Evernote allows me to connect those documents and easily search them. I’m a big fan.

By: SpaceAgeSage

SpaceAgeSage — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:41:59 +0000

I find myself working best when my field of vision around the computer and across the room in front of me is uncluttered. Sometimes it really is the simple things that matter.

By: Joseph Z.

Joseph Z. — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:38:24 +0000

I have the same problem. When I’m brainstorming a blog or a product write-up, I wind up with a bunch of documents with fragments of text. I want to keep the info separate, but I don’t want to end up with a million documents that I can’t wade through (and be annoyed at myself for causing so much clutter).

I’m wondering what you suggest for this.