Why is my desk so messy?

In this episode, I'll be talking about why a messy desk doesn't signal laziness or lack of care. It signals something very different and quite positive. But it is holding you back. You need a space that helps you function at your best.

David Lynch wrote, "You need clarity to create." Your desk is an easy first project to begin clearing the cruft and gaining a bit more clarity.

I'd love to connect with you further! You can find my weekly art-share newsletter at justadrip.substack.com

Thanks for listening and see you next week! 

Transcript

Hello, ambitious creators! I hope you're ready to dream, and scheme, and create some great art. My name is Brielle Goheen and I'm so excited to be your productivity and creativity coach for the next fifteen to twenty minutes. Before we get started on today's episode, I want invite you to sign up to my mailing list. I send out a short email every week where I share something that has captured my attention and inspired me that week. So the purpose of this email is mainly for me to just share beautiful things with you. It might be a beautiful thought or an intriguing piece of art. Maybe a thought provoking poem or just a perfect quote or a story from me about something I'm learning about how to live life just a little bit better. it's called Just A Drip and you can sign up for that by visiting justadrip.substack.com. The link will be in the show notes and I just invite you take connect with me in that way.

Hello, and welcome to episode two of A Little Bit Unstoppable! Last week we talked about a huge question - the question, "Is my art even important?" It's a question that's so huge you can barely scratch the surface of that topic in twenty minutes. So I'm sure that we will revisit it and add some layers in the coming weeks. This week, the question is kind of the polar opposite. It's tiny and it's specific, but it's actually a bit deceptive. And although it seems straightforward enough, you might end up being a bit surprised by some of the answers. So the question I'm answering today is, "Why is my desk so messy?" And you can replace the "desk" with "work space" or "creative area." So, if you're a musician it might be your practice area. Or for an artist might be where you're creating your art or doing your pottery. Or it could be where you sit to do your creative thinking. But why are these areas so messy? I'm gonna be using the word desk from here on in, but if you don't use a desk as one of your creative spaces then you can replace the word desk with any other word that represents a work space for you that tends to become messy and cluttered.

If your desk is anything like mine used to be, it's a bit of a dumping ground. There are paper piles just filled with all kinds of things - like bills, to-do lists lists of steps for important projects. There were post it's of little things that I didn't want to forget about, documents that I would pull out to reference something but I hadn't gotten around to putting it away. And then there's the assortment of things like tape or random pens (some of which had run out of ink) or pencils (that still needed to be sharpened) or a hole punch, paper clips, staplers, and even a smattering of books that I read a few chapters before abandoning because I didn't have the time.

I used to feel so much shame when someone would come into my work space and they would see my mess. But I didn't know what else to do because I actually used the stuff. I would find myself at Staples, gazing longingly at all of the desk organization products. I'd usually buy one and bring it home but then I'd end up using it pretty inconsistently for a few months. Until I realized that it was actually making things worse and it would end up in a pile destined one day for donation. But I mean that's a whole other issue because that pile usually it didn't even make it to the donation facility. So fast forward to now - my desk hold a computer, a pencil sharpener, a container for my pens and pencils, and my day planner. Nothing else. There are no papers on my desk. There's no bills, no random to do lists. Every now and then I'll pull a binder or a folder or something like that that has in it some things that I need to use for a little while. But then when I'm done with them, they go back in the binder and the binder goes back on the shelf, or it goes back where it belongs. The only reason - and I want to stress this - the only reason that my desk has been rid of its chaos is because I addressed the root cause of the mess. I actually didn't need a shiny new organizing thing. I didn't need any of that organizing paraphernalia that I was drooling over at Staples. What I needed to know was what was on my desk and why it was on my desk.

So the first thing I wanna make sure that you know about your messy desk is this: it's not messy because you're lazy. It's not messy because you're disorganized beyond hope. It's actually messy because you care. It's messy because you care about other people and you care about your responsibilities to them. You really do want to do a good job with everything that you set out to do and you know the people are counting on you. You don't want to let them down. So you're not lazy. Your messy desk is actually a kind of hallmark of how hard you're working to stay on top of everything to keep up with all of your responsibilities. And that's a really really good thing. So I don't want you to feel shame about your messy desk. There are just things that you don't know yet about your messy desk and about how to get rid or how to solve that problem.

Because the truth is that as much as you care, you're actually making it much harder than it needs to be. All of the things on your desk serve as visual reminders. The reminders of things that you care about so much. The reminders of the people that you love and the things that you want to do for them. The things that you want to do to show up and be there for them. But keeping house on your desk is an awful awful system. Because as soon as the second item is piled on top of the first item, you can't see it anymore and the whole visual reminder thing is made completely useless. So you end up with piles of papers and small items - all of your work space - each of which represents some kind of task or commitment that's really important to you. But none of them are actually doing their job of reminding you because you can't see them. And instead you see a whole pile. You don't see the individual things that are the reminders you just see a pile of all the things that you have to do. And that big pile, because it's undefined, makes you feel distracted and overwhelmed when you sit down and you try to do your work. I just actually found out that people are calling these piles 'doom piles.'
I love it so much! Doom piles. It's the perfect word because that's exactly how you feel when you're looking at these piles - this vague sense of impending doom!

But, strangely, there's also a sense of comfort in the chaos for a for a lot of us. We've become accustomed to, and even addicted to, the chemical rush that our brain gives us when we see the chaos that surrounds us. So for some of you, it will reinforce negative narratives that you have about yourself and about your worth. And the familiar feeling like there's something wrong with you or feeling like you're "less than" - it's comforting even though it makes you feel bad. And for some of you, there is a fear that if you get rid of the chaos you don't know what you'll find underneath. The mess is like this perfect excuse for why you haven't created the thing that you said you would and so you wonder, "Without the chaos, is there actually something of substance that I can create from underneath all of that?"

Every so often I run an Inbox Zero workshop and I warn the participants that - tomorrow when they come back and they see their inbox zero staring at them, they'll feel really strange. When they see nothing much staring back at them instead of 16,000 unread emails then all of those messages that we expect to receive from our own minds - messages like 'I am so busy and so important I can't even get back to people' or 'I'm such a screw up' or 'I didn't get back to this person and now must hate me and they think that I don't care about them but really I do' ... those messages that you expect to receive from your own mind - it's just silence. You don't receive any of them and it's the strangest feeling in the world when you've been used to being bombarded with emotion. And with emotion comes all these different various reward chemicals in your brain. So you're used to being bombarded with emotion at the sight of your email inbox and now you aren't to getting those chemicals in your brain.

The last time that I ran this Inbox Zero workshop I had several participants email me in the following days just thanking me for warning them that it wouldn't only feel good and free to have the chaos lifted. That it would also feel a little bit jarring and weird. There was a student that I worked with that mentioned that after working through my course modules on decluttering physical space their desk, which was no longer messy, now reminded them of all of the uncertainties that lay ahead. Because now their mind wasn't focused on the clutter of all the things that provided excuses and provided things to kinda putter around with through the day. But instead, it was a clean clear desk that represented how necessary it was to tackle the big projects head on. That all the little things were taken care of and now it's time to get to work on the important things.

So it can be really really difficult and I just want to warn you about that. It can be really difficult to clear away the clutter from your space because deep down you're afraid. Because it's almost like you think without the clutter you might discover that you don't have anything to offer. And how scary is that?

But I promise you - a hundred percent guaranteed - that is not true. You do have something to offer. You might feel a little empty for a second, or a few days. But when your brain is given for peace and space and freedom it does what our brains are designed to do. It will begin creating the most beautiful, breathtaking possibilities for your life. And all it needs is a tiny sliver of peace. Just a bit of white space in which to dream.

So what does all this have to do with being an ambitious creator? Well, David Lynch, who is one of the most inspiring creators that I know - just one of these people that creates with utter freedom - he wrote this book called Catching the Big Fish and I love it. It's just, it's structured in such a David Lynch kind of way. It's not your typical self help book or creativity book. It's just all these wonderful thoughts that you  get to piece together. But one of my favorite quotes from that book is, "You must have clarity to create. You have to be able to catch ideas."

So if your mind is clogged by chaos - the chaos of your messy desk - you won't have the clarity to create at your fullest potential. And if your hands are full from juggling the vague demands that each of the things on your desk represent for you - and I see vague because you haven't yet defined what it is that these things mean to you and you haven't yet made a clear decision on what it does and doesn't mean to you - then your hands will be full juggling these things and you won't be able to catch ideas in those fleeting moments when they come to you. Your hands are full, the idea comes, and it just drops off because you didn't have the clarity and the space to grab the idea. And so often I wonder how many incredible ideas have we lost because they've come to us in these moments where we're feeling overwhelmed. Where we're not even able to deal with our own daily life, let alone catching this world altering idea.

So here's what I want you to do this week. If your desk is messy, like mine was, I want you to get rid of these piles. Every single item on your desk that you don't actively want there is basically just a decision that is being put off. So the best way to get rid of these doom piles is to pick up each and every paper and every single item and ask yourself what does this mean to me? Why am I keeping it? Why is it here? Does it represent a task? If it represents a task then put that task on your to do list so you don't forget about it. Does it need to be filed away? If it does, what category does belong in? And if the file hasn't been created for that category then create it and file the paper so you can find it later and you can find it easily.

I used to spend way too much time - I would spend ninety minutes - looking for things like papers that I knew I had and I would have to go through pile after pile after pile one by one trying to find this one thing that I'm like I know I have it. It's got to be in here somewhere.
And I wasted so much time looking for things. And now I've created a system for all of my papers so I can find anything that I need in about thirty seconds or so.

So if you don't have a filing system, you almost certainly need one. That would be something that's very worthwhile to just invest in - you can get like tiny little ones from Staples so you don't need a whole filing cabinet or anything like that.

But going back to the questions - does it bring to mind a memory maybe that you don't want to forget? You can either snap a photo of the item or the paper and then get rid of it, or you can display it somewhere in your home. Honor it by displaying it and having it out where you can see it or you can just put it in a bin that's designated specifically for meaningful memories that you go through every once in awhile. Or if there's a pencil that needs to be sharpened that's on your desk - just do it now! It's gonna take you, like, less than sixty seconds. Just sharpen the pencil so that you can use it the next time you need a pencil.

The main take away is - go through absolutely everything on your desk one item at a time. Figure out what it means to you and decide what you're gonna do with it. So don't put off these decisions and don't move on to the next item until you've made a decision on the thing that you're thinking of right now. So this is really important for actually finishing the job. If you don't do this - if you're just kind of like, "I don't know what to do with that." and move on to the next thing, you're gonna end up with all of the hardest decision items at the end. And then you're gonna make excuses because, you know, now you're tired and you've done most of it anyway. But the thing is that you've left the things that will take the most care and attention to actually deal with. So don't skip things. Just do them one after the other after the other after the other. And even if you have to stand up and take a break and come back to it later, that's a better way to do it then to put off something and go on to an easier item.

Now, once your desk is cleared off, I want you to add something to the space to elevate it. It could be, like, a lamp, or a candle, or a set of your favourite pens so you have some fresh pens to work with, or something else. But choose something that will mark this space as a sacred creative zone for you. Choose something that will remind you that you have important work to get to at this desk. If you want to learn more about decluttering your physical spaces and, more importantly, finding clarity and calm within your own mind so that you can catch ideas, so that you can execute on those ideas with power and with ease, I have something special coming up in just a few weeks. I'll be opening the doors to my 12-week program Becoming Unstoppable. Through online video trainings, actionable and practical PDF guides, and live small group coaching, I'll help you get to the source of your daily overwhelm, addressing the root causes so that you can grow beyond it for the last time.

I wanna see you creating some really really awesome things. And part of that is to have clarity in your mind and also to have a space to work in and your physical environment that is easy to manage with as many things as automated as possible. That's a huge thing that I am passionate about - making the most important things automatic. Your desk is messy because has you care. But it's holding your mental energy captive and keeping you from being able to create effortlessly. So I really hope that you've taken something away from this. That you can maybe see your clutter issues in your working space maybe in a little bit more of a positive light. That they say something really beautiful about you but that it's time now to move beyond that. To begin working with systems that function better for your life.

It takes bravery and it takes courage to walk the artistic path and we need to support and encourage each other as much as possible. If you found this episode helpful consider sharing it with a friend - maybe another ambitious creator that you think might find it helpful as well. Another way that you can help other ambitious creators find our Unstoppable Community is to leave a review of this podcast episode with a sentence or two in your preferred podcast listening app. I'd appreciate that just so much. It really does affect how many new listeners find out about the podcast and I want as many people as possible to be empowered by these episodes. If you haven't already, don't forget to subscribe so that you'll be notified every time there's a new episode.
 
Remember: the worlds we imagine are the worlds we build. So, ambitious creator, imagine something beautiful and take the next step - no matter how small - toward building it.