Ask the cubicle expat: Can clutter and creativity co-exist?

January 18th, 2008

Sarah Jio asks: As a fellow freelancer, I work from home. I’m pretty anal about organization, but when it comes to my office, it’s become a catch-all for baby stuff, the vacuum cleaner, STACKS upon STACKS of magazines, and plain ol’ junk! As I plan a big office remodel this year, I’m polling my freelancer friends about their work spaces. I always love to hear where others write, how they keep their spaces tidy, and how they make them an enjoyable place to work — so Michelle, please share! Do you keep your office super clean? Do you need it to feel organized to feel creative? What are your tricks for keeping your files in order — and avoiding chaos? Is it important for you to enjoy the space (i.e., have you painted it a cool color, splurged on a great chair)?

I answer: I write in the spare bedroom in my house. Besides the desk, phone, computer, fax, etc., it contains four bookshelves, a file cabinet, and stacks and stacks of neatly piled folders from past articles/gigs that I need to sort through this spring. It also has a door that shuts and two windows, one on either side of my desk. The natural light is key for me. Ditto for the door, in case anyone’s over or the dog decides to bark when I’m on a call.

I desperately want to repaint the office and get some taller bookshelves and make it cozier/cuter/more space-optimal, but that’s a project for spring or summer. (Ideas: Stencils on the walls and a bulletin board painted some bright color.) Right now I have a big, multi-week deadline to focus on, which is of course why I’m answering this question instead.

My big thing is that as long as my office is neat and relatively free of dog-hair tumbleweeds, I can work. A few months ago, the floor was littered with crap (books, magazines, old files, bulk office supplies, clothes that needed to go to Goodwill) and it was really distracting. In fact, I stopped using my office altogether and started working at the kitchen table!

Fortunately, an out-of-town family visit prompted me to pick up the floor. I moved a lot of the old files and bulk office supplies into the garage, filled the recycling bin with files and magazines I didn’t need anymore, and neatened the rest of the files into stacks that I’ve pushed against the walls and corners… to be sorted in a few months. (In an ideal world, I’d purge my files once a quarter. Also, I’m trying to print out less, but sometimes you just have to read an in-depth research doc or edit offline, you know?)

If my desk gets too crazy cluttered or I can’t find the printed contracts/research that I immediately need, I will stop right in the middle of my workday to deal with it. Not ideal when you’re on a roll with an article or chapter. And right now, I’m dying to spend an evening rearranging my bookshelves because it’s been hard to find the books I need for research during the past few weeks. That’s probably something I’ll tackle this month.

As for accoutrements, I recently bought a bigass flatscreen monitor, which I love. So much better than hunching over my laptop. My body is happier too. Ditto for the $300 chair I bought a couple years ago, which was an ergonomic necessity. I was living at the chiropractor’s office. I’m still looking for the ideal way to store hard copies of newspaper and magazine clips I want to save. Maybe I’ll spluge on one of those flat filing cabinets, if I can find a tall, skinny one that’s pretty. (If anyone has suggestions, I, too, would love to hear.)

Got questions about fleeing the cube and working from home? I got answers (that is, as long as you don’t want me to look at your resume and tell you what to do with your life — there are, ahem, books for that). Here’s where you can reach me.

Entry Filed under: Ask the Cubicle Expat