Comments on: New Year’s Resolution: Make a Big Mess

By: Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive Now Your Computer Desktop Can Be Just as Messy as Your Real One «

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 19:00:39 +0000

[...] considered the virtues of messiness before, but you’re probably wondering just why we’d want to bring the mess of the real [...]

By: Beppo

Beppo — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 00:39:08 +0000

To me, simplifying my life doesn’t mean making it more boring or accomplishing less. In fact, I hope to accomplish more by simplifying and organizing my priorities. For example, one of my most important goals is to write more music, but I haven’t spent much time on it lately because my time has been divided among other interests. While these “other interests” are enjoyable, they distract me from doing more in the areas that are most important to me.

It seems like these days we tend to get involved in so many diverse activities and enjoy so many stimuli that we aren’t actually accomplishing as much as we could be. I don’t want to look back at my life when I’m old and wonder what could have been if only I had done more with my talents.

By: ningpo

ningpo — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 13:23:00 +0000

Contemplating your navel is a waste of time. Instead of your introverted thinking and displacement activity just get on with your life — and where you have spare time, achieve something rather than looking inwards. You’ll be happier.

By: Anne Zelenka

Anne Zelenka — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 14:24:32 +0000

True, it’s not necessarily an either/or. Lifehacker asked “what do you think of mess?” in response to the Times article and many commenters said they are messy in certain areas of their lives and neat otherwise.

And it’s also partly a matter of temperament.

This debate is helpful for the person who always feels they need to be more organized but can’t seem to be and is productive even in their disorder. There has been an increasing emphasis on getting your life organized and reducing clutter–that might not be right for everyone and it’s useful to hear that it’s not always the right thing to do.

By: New Year’s Resolution: Make a Big Mess « Universe_JDJ’s News Blog

New Year’s Resolution: Make a Big Mess « Universe_JDJ’s News Blog — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 11:27:10 +0000

[...] read more | digg story [...]

By: Logical Extremes

Logical Extremes — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 04:14:52 +0000

I often see the order vs. chaos “debate” framed as almost a black-and-white thing. But I really think people are different across a wide spectrum, and different modes of operation suit different people (and different tasks). I don’t see any real benefit in trying to change a max-stimuli person into a neat-freak or vice versa. It’s almost like religion, everyone should feel free to live the way they want, but be considerate of alternative views (and don’t impose your mode on my workspace). I tend toward the orderly, and because I’m also observant, I often also know where other people’s things are better than they do. I’m all for making a big mess early in a project to generate ideas and get all of the needed information together, but as the project proceeds and needs to complete, I think it’s important to get organized, reduce distractions and clutter, and distill whatever it is down to a clear, concise, and intuitively-understood deliverable.

By: Anne Zelenka

Anne Zelenka — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 02:25:21 +0000

I don’t get too crazy with my browser tabs… I try to deal with each page as I need it (unless it’s an app like gmail, then I keep it open) and not leave stuff hanging.

I recently switched my RSS reading to Google Reader from Bloglines and it’s a lot faster. I think I’m skipping more posts based just on the headlines. The “show all” in list view makes me think twice about actually looking at a post because there are so many to read. But I worry that I might be missing something.

As for simplifying vs. messifying: I intend 2007 to have tons of action. I think that means it will be pretty messy, which is fine with me. Organization is good, but excitement and forward progress is better. They’re not totally opposed but I can see that thinking too much about simplicity can mean closing yourself off to good but messy stuff.

By: Sal Cangeloso

Sal Cangeloso — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 02:10:37 +0000

Those are all admirable and worthy goals, once I have attempted as well (unsuccessfully). I am addicted to tabs as well as multiple browsers windows despite how the olders tabs (sometimes stacked 20 deep) might as well not even be there.

As far as RSS is concerned, I recently moved all my news/reading in RSS and have been saving loads of time each day but keeping my site visits to a bare minimum. I try to check it only a few times a day, but set the update time at every 60 minutes, so even if I do check back in, I know I will have some time before I start reading again. May have to change it to 2 hrs though…