What does your workplace? Maybe it is littered with things among which you can never find mobile phone or required document? Or maybe your table does not resemble a jungle at all, but is designed in the spirit of minimalism? Row scientific research suggests that the manner in which one maintains one's workplace may indicate certain personality traits of a person. For example, clutter on a desk indicates tremendous creativity. If you want to know more about your colleagues, take a close look at some of the features.
A cluttered workspace is wreaking havoc around it. Colorful cute little things and personal items so often distract your colleague from work. Psychologically speaking, the owner of a cluttered table can be more sociable, and he also shows friendliness to his colleagues. When such an employee has the right to choose a personal location, he prefers to "settle" in places of the greatest concentration of people. He must constantly be in the spotlight.
If we talk about negative sides of this person, then these include excessive employment and activity. To put the table in order, such people will need much more time. Maybe cleaning is not necessary at all? Most people find "creative clutter" much more appealing than the sparse minimalism of the nearby tables. 
Minimalism
The love of order cultivates minimalism. Each item should be used and kept strictly in the designated place. If you think that all minimalists are introverts, you are wrong. There are also many extroverts who are scrupulous, accurate and conscientious. In addition, the minimalists are characterized by such traits as hard work, reliability and vigilance. Putting things on the shelves, these people love to plan their lives. They often keep a to-do list. And here is another nuance that psychologists have noticed: if a person among total minimalism has not placed a single personal thing on his desk, he does not plan to stay in this place for a long time. 
A trend towards expanding influence
If a person likes to put his personal belongings with a neighbor, he seeks to expand the space, and therefore his influence in the office. Such an employee likes to dominate and over time tries to "mark" everything more territory... He dumps the trash at the neighbor's house and puts his coat on the couch. Even at lunch, he pushes the coffee mug and sandwich as far away from him as possible. Thus, the invaders demonstrate to others that they need more territory. Their desk usually takes center stage in the office. On the other hand, these people really do not like it when colleagues invade their personal space and behave very aggressively. 
Too many personal items
There is probably a person in every office with a stack of books or magazines on his desk. He places artwork, mementos and personal photographs there. This stylish and distinctively designed workplace indicates tremendous creativity, intelligence and openness to new experiences. Such people have an irrepressible curiosity and are more often extroverts. Contact with personal belongings gives them an increased sense of comfort. On the other hand, it indicates job satisfaction, mental and physical well-being. These people are a real find for employers. 
Detached workplace
Few of us prefer to sit with our backs to the door, because on a subconscious level we are afraid of hidden threats and want to control the situation. The table, located in the high traffic area, makes it possible to keep abreast of all affairs and even rumors. However, not everyone likes to be among a large crowd of colleagues. Some people prefer to isolate their workplace. They do not disdain a table by the window or in the very corner, and without a twinge of conscience will sit with their backs to the doors.
Individualists do not react to a potential threat, they are not interested in the amorous adventures of colleagues. They sacredly respect their personal space and do not like it when something distracts them from work. In order to carry out a project, an individualist does not need help, he can easily cope on his own. Sometimes this person is a little irritable. Do not judge him harshly, he does not hate people. His introverted nature makes it possible to reveal all his creativity, only through loneliness.
The employer attaches too much importance to the order and cleanliness of the employee's workplace. It is believed that the table is an indicator of work efficiency: if it is clean, it means that the person is well motivated and copes. If it's a mess, it's time to sound the alarm. Scientists recently discovered that table clutter is not always harmful, it can even be useful.
"Order in the workplace means that all processes are built, information flows are established, tasks are solved on time, and by the files you need there is always online access, "- almost all employers think so.
It reaches the point of absurdity. Supervisor practice " High tech Olga Kochergina says: “The representative of the employing company, while the candidate was interviewing in their office, went out to the parking lot and examined the candidate's car: was it washed? Is the salon tidy? "Thus, the company drew a conclusion about the accuracy of the candidate. But is it so important? There are different opinions on this matter.
Cleanliness is the key to efficiency
"For me, as a leader, the neatness of the workplace is important: everything should be folded neatly. The lack of clothes on the backs of chairs and other things not related to work is especially important, "says Tatyana Buryanina, head of general recruitment in St. Petersburg.
Most of the time a mess on the desktop means loss of attention and difficulty concentrating, says the owner of MyCell Ilya Gutman: “This affects the employee's work efficiency, the speed of completing tasks. work ".
"Most of the private table the employee is occupied with paper, - rightly notes Sofia Kukovyakina, HR Director of Konica Minolta Business Solutions Russia. - When non-disappearing stacks of documents become commonplace, foreign objects that have nothing to do with work appear on the table. This creates chaos. ”She explains: in her company, the workplace is not approached locally, but globally: order on the table and around ensures electronic document flow.
Employers contain the chaos with different ways. For example, the internal rules of the Coca – Cola HBC Russia stipulate what should be on the table and what should not.
"Order in the workplace positively affects the efficiency of work, - Ksenia Ekova, Regional HR Manager for the North-West of Coca-Cola HBC Russia, is sure. “We strive to develop a culture of orderliness among our employees. Once a quarter, we spend days of clean tables, we set the example of those workers who keep their workplaces clean. "
SUN InBev uses Japanese 5S workspace organization method, consisting of five steps: removing unnecessary things, defining a place for each thing, systematic cleaning, standardizing the first three steps and self-discipline. “Every month we conduct 5S audits and mark the best departments,” says Olga Antonova. “The 5S compliance rating is published in a weekly mailing list and covered at business briefings.”
Useful chaos
"The company is judged by its staff and environment. If the table is a mess, it is difficult to convince your partner that you are attentive to the little things, "says Elena Krachkovskaya, head of the administrative department of the HOST Group of Companies.
But Natalia Loseva, On the other hand, the head of marketing and PR at Acsour believes that there is no clear connection between the mess on the table and chaos in the head: “Maintaining perfect order is a waste of time and effort. complex system How and where to store papers, you also need to constantly and accurately classify everything that falls into your hands. In addition, we tend to forget about those papers that we put away in trays and boxes. "
Scientists from the University of Minnesota recently proved that clutter does not reduce a worker's efficiency, but helps him perform better. "I know guys who are more productive if the table is littered with papers, notes, motivational pictures and funny quotes", - confirms general manager PR Partner Inna Alekseeva.
Perfect order is especially harmful. on the table for those who work in multitasking and have to constantly switch from project to project, says Natalya Loseva.
"The way the table looks employee, definitely speaks about his approaches to work and the current state of his tasks, "continues the thought of Artur Bulatov, one of the leaders of Brooma. Thus, creative chaos on the table helps representatives of creative professions draw inspiration and, in general, create.
"If the specifics of the work are such, that the business environment around is changing very quickly, there are requests that are important to quickly satisfy, the company operates in a highly competitive environment, the result that the employee shows is more important than his perfect table"- Olga Kochergina reminds her colleagues. Therefore, it makes no sense to demand order on the tables from representatives of creative professions, consulting and marketing agencies, as well as the media.
Chief editor of the portal "Rabota.ru" Anna Chukseeva sums up: "Of course, if there is moldy bread on the table, it is at least unpleasant. If we talk about piles of unassembled documents and a heap of pieces of paper, this is everyone's personal business. In the end, Albert Einstein was right about something when he said:" Only a fool needs order, genius rules over chaos. "
If an employee to achieve goals need chaos - give him this opportunity. Jobs, Einstein, and Twain, for example, were not fans of perfect order.
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If a mess on a table means a mess in your head, then what does an empty table mean? Albert Einstein
Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein and Mark Twain. What do these people have in common, besides genius?
A mess on your desktop!
They did not go with the flow of the mainstream when they did not, but rather created it themselves. They did everything in their own way. But how can you work when there is a pile of papers and a pile of other things on the table?
Let's find out from this article.
Clutter and creativity
Some time ago, we told you about research by scientists at Princeton University, who proved that clutter reduces concentration and, as a result, productivity.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota are also interested in the impact of the environment on performance. The results of their scientific research are as follows: a cluttered desktop contributes to creative thinking, helps to think outside the box, while the ideal order really puts thoughts in order (sorry for the tautology), helps to concentrate.
A number of experiments allowed scientists to draw such conclusions. In one of them, some of the subjects were seated at tidied tables:
And the other part at the tables, littered with all sorts of rubbish.
The other part is in disarray Both were asked to fill out a questionnaire. It turned out that people who wrote at a clean table tended to be more inclined to charity. healthy eating and generally "correct" life.
Cleanliness obliges people to behave appropriately. Kathleen Vohs, Study Director
In another experiment, subjects were asked to come up with a non-standard use of a ping-pong ball. People who were creative in disorder came up with more ideas.
Clutter stimulates creativity. And it has great importance for the development of culture and art.
From childhood we are taught: put away toys after you, do not scatter things, make the bed. But, if you believe the conclusions of scientists, teaching children to cleanliness, parents, thereby, "dull" their creative streak.
However, the habit of clutter can make you an outcast in society. They are greeted by their clothes, so when colleagues see rubbish on your desktop, they think: “What a slob, for sure, he treats work the same way!”.
Nevertheless, people who are truly in love with their work are able to arrange a destroi without noticing sidelong glances.
Alexander Fleming and other greats "dirty"
Sir Alexander Fleming is a British bacteriologist who discovered lysozyme and isolated the world's first antibiotic, penicillin.
Colleagues often laughed at Fleming: a scientist, and in the laboratory the devil will break his leg.
Fleming kept the cultures of microorganisms isolated by him for two or three weeks and, before destroying them, carefully studied them to check if some unexpected and interesting phenomenon had happened by chance. Further history showed that if he was as neat as me, he most likely would not have discovered anything new.
This is an excerpt from the memoirs of one of the scientists in the laboratory. Surprisingly, it was the disorder that helped Fleming make 2 major discoveries.
In 1922 Sir Fleming caught a cold. Suffering from a runny nose, he brought nasal mucus into the Petri dish. In the part of the dish where it got into, the bacterial colonies died. Fleming began to investigate this phenomenon.
It turned out that tears, saliva, and particles of living tissue have the same effect on a solution with many bacteria. So Fleming discovered lysozyme, an antibacterial enzyme produced by the human body.
A case and ... a mess in the laboratory also helped to isolate penicillin. In 1928, a colleague looked into the scientist's office. Fleming was just sorting through moldy Petri dishes with old crops.
"As soon as you open a cup of culture, you are in for trouble: something is sure to get out of thin air ..." - Fleming complained to a colleague. And then he suddenly fell silent and thought ...
In one of the moldy petri dishes, all bacteria were killed. This marked the beginning of Fleming's research on mold, culminating in the discovery of penicillin.
About another great scientist, for whom disorder was a part of the creative environment, Lifehacker is already. It's about the "mad scientist from Bletchley Park" Alan Turing.
It is also known that chaos reigned in the workplaces of the English expressionist artist Francis Bacon and the American writer Mark Twain.
Here are some modern examples:
- Mark Zuckerberg - Programmer, Founder and Leader social network Facebook.
- Tony Shay is an entrepreneur and CEO of the online clothing, footwear and accessories store Zappos.com.
- Max Levchin is a web developer and programmer, one of the founders of PayPal.
- Dennis Crowley is the founder of Foursquare.
What's going on on your desktop? ;)
"If a mess on a table means a mess in the head, then what does an empty table mean?" - Albert Einstein.
It is well known that Einstein worked at a very cluttered desk, which never bothered him. However, both colleagues at work and household members often reproach us for the fact that the desktop is a mess, in which, in their opinion, nothing can be found.
Who is right - adherents of cleanliness and accuracy or creative natures who strive to "keep everything at hand" in one heap? A new study has shown that order or disorder in the workplace has different psychological consequences.
Kaitlyn Vos and her colleagues at the University of Minnesota conducted several experiments to assess the impact of workplace health on psychological characteristics office workers. In the first step, participants were asked to complete several questionnaires while in the office. One group of subjects took tests in a cleanly tidy office, the other in a room filled with all sorts of office supplies and papers.
After completing the questionnaires, the participants were given the opportunity to participate in a charity event, as well as eat an apple or candy. The results showed that after staying in clean room subjects donated more money and took an apple more often (healthier food) than those in the mess.
Thus, if you want to encourage good behavior and adherence in your employees, the office must be kept clean and tidy. But what if your employees are required to be creative in the first place?
The second experiment that was conducted, which also took place in an environment of order or disorder in the room, assumed the most creative approach from the participants. They were given a standard task - to come up with as many actions as possible with a ping-pong ball. This time, it was the creative confusion that stimulated the participants to come up with more uses of the subject.
In the last, third experiment, the participants were asked to imagine that they are choosing a drink in the store that promotes health, improves appearance or fortified with vitamins. In random order, each of these alternatives was supported by information that it was a "classic taste" or a "new taste". So, the results predictably showed that in a tidy room, participants were more likely to choose a “classic” drink, while in a mess they chose a “new” one.
The authors of the article argue that the results obtained can be successfully applied in organizational psychology: for example, at different stages of a project's implementation, different abilities may be required from its participants. At the very beginning, there is brainstorm and generation of ideas, while a little later more routine work begins, and it is better to do it in conditions of cleanliness and order, when nothing distracts from the process.
Literature:
- Kathleen D. Vohs, Joseph P. Redden, Ryan Rahinel. Psychological Science 0956797613480186, first published on August 1, 2013 doi: 10.1177 / 0956797613480186
Agree, to one degree or another, everyone has a mess, at home, or at work, or on the desktop. Is it so terrible, and should we strive to restore order? Amazing research.
It has long been known that clutter negatively affects our lives:
1. Degrades self-awareness and increases nervous tension, drains energy.
You may forget that you have not completed some business: you have not sent a letter, have not completed an abstract or report, but your subconscious mind has not. It knows that you have a lot of things to do right now, and it scrolls this information all the time. Chaos in the world of things also prevents the brain from fully processing incoming information.
The more the mess becomes, the more difficult it is to clean it up, the less the desire to do it.
2. Leads to weight problems and bad habits.
Scientists American associations the health authorities conducted several experiments, during which a direct dependence of weight on the order in the house was revealed. Desktop clutter is due to a clutter in the head, as evidenced by promiscuity and chaos in eating habits. The consequence of all this is weight gain, as well as the emergence of bad habits. 
3. Steals precious time.
If you do everything at once, then you may not have time for anything. By wasting our energy on several things at the same time, we run the risk of doing nothing, or doing everything very slowly. Having ordered unfinished business, we concentrate on each, and do them efficiently and quickly, in turn, without forgetting anything.
The more order in the house, the more positive and harmonious your life becomes.
Now let's talk about the other side of the mess.
Clutter is the norm! Life itself is unpredictable and chaotic, although it seems to us that if everything is "organized", things and thoughts are put on the shelves, then it will be much better. It's a delusion.
We are trying to find harmony in the soul by putting things in order around us. The most indicative example here is with creative, harmonious people. They are more likely to create clutter on the desktop: randomly scattered papers, mock-ups, notebooks and equipment called creative mess... And people who love to put things in order even where it already exists, are distinguished by a logical mindset, greater organization, exactingness towards themselves and others, and often dissatisfaction with themselves or the outside world.
Albert Einstein once remarked:
If a mess on a table means a mess in your head, then what does an empty table mean?
Albert Einstein
Clutter is not necessarily a sign of randomness. At a table where everything is scattered, you can work more efficiently than at a clean one. When a person has a mess on his desk, this does not mean that he does not work well. This means that he works so well that he just has no time to get out.
Disorganization and untidiness are condemned in society, but most of the great minds have lived in such conditions all their lives: Albert Einstein, Alan Turing, Ronald Dahl, J.K. Rowling.
It has been proven that a chaotic environment forces people to change outdated norms and generate new ideas. Order is the result of our desire for security, chaos is our desire for creative rethinking of the world.
But everything is necessary in moderation. Notes, drawings, drawings, diagrams - let them remain on the table, but candy wrappers, crumbs, dirty mugs have no place on the table! Perfect organization, like the embodied mess, are two extremes, and you need to learn to balance between them.