Cluttered!

I've seen this idea half a dozen times over the past year or so. I just want to comment on it. I'd normally just comment on the post, but I don't have a WordPress account, so no dice.

The basic idea is that people with cluttered desks are more brilliant (or, at least, get more work done) than people with clear desks. Everyone who hears this thinks, "oh, because, uh, they don't care, or because geniuses are mad, or something."

The answer is much easier than that:

Brilliant people have more clutter to put on their desks.

Brilliant people tend to read fifty times more than the average person - books, papers, blog posts, etc. What then happens? Throw it out? Not if it has any conceivable use - you'll come back to it later. So it piles up. It piles up on the desk, on the floor (if possible), and definitely in the bookmarks section of FireFox.

It's not a natural tendency towards sloppiness. It's a natural tendency towards having too much goddamn stuff crossing our desks.

...

Their desks. I meant "their desks".

;)