Before I started a geology blog, I used to sporadically blog about geology over at
Skepchick. These days, I blog here at Georneys about geology, and I blog over at Skepchick about other skeptical and scientific things, such as
why I am thankful for science. Occasionally, I will re-post some of my old geology posts from Skepchick. I will also sometimes cross-post on both blogs.
The post below originally appeared on Skepchick in 2007
here. Although this is not strictly a geology post, I thought it would be timely to repost this since I just spent some time cleaning up my apartment so that I have a clean space in which to reduce data tomorrow.
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| My home dining room table, cluttered with computer, papers, notebook, phone, and cat, Spring 2010. |
Some of the most brilliant, productive people I know have the most cluttered offices and homes. For instance, my advisor’s* office is a mess, though he always knows where to find things. Similarly, my friend and mentor
James Randi has an office that is full of clutter. Randi doesn’t know where to find things, generally, but his cluttered office doesn’t keep him from doing brilliant work.
Is there a link between clutter and brilliance? Are brilliant, productive people just less concerned with details of keeping house than with their work? Does the lack of time spent tidying up translate into more time for doing more interesting work?
Of course, I am generalizing. There are plenty of brilliant, productive people who keep their offices and homes immaculate. One could argue, just as easily perhaps, that there’s a link between obsessive compulsive disorder and brilliance. However, looking around the halls of MIT**, I see clutter, mess, and brilliant work everywhere. Is the scientific mind, the mind of an engineer perhaps, prone to clutter? Or at least prone to not worry about clutter and keeping up appearances?
