Leadership Tactic #72: The Clean Desk Club

Cats need desks too.

One interview question that I used to ask to applicants was, “What does your desk at work look like?”

I didn’t put a lot of weight in the answer (hence my omission of that question from more recent interviews), but my theory was that a person’s desk is reflective of the way he works. If your desk is organized, the person is probably organized. The opposite is true if a person keeps a messy desk. Thus I would slightly prefer someone who keeps their desk organized.

A recent article didn’t exactly confirm my theory, but it did affirm the idea that having a clean desk is better. The problem is that physical clutter impedes a person’s ability to focus. This makes perfect sense. If your desk is covered in hundreds of papers and sticky notes and gadgets, the distractions get in the way of your productivity and creativity even if you don’t notice it.

Here’s a snippet from the article:

The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and other physiological measurement tools to map the brain’s responses to organized and disorganized stimuli and to monitor task performance. The conclusions were strong — if you want to focus to the best of your ability and process information as effectively as possible, you need to clear the clutter from your home and work environment. This research shows that you will be less irritable, more productive, distracted less often, and able to process information better with an uncluttered and organized home and office.

Naturally, I keep a very tidy desk–maybe 8 out of 10 on a sliding scale of tidiness at work and 7.5/10 at home due to a stack of notes and the cats. What about you?

16 thoughts on “Leadership Tactic #72: The Clean Desk Club”

  1. Perhaps people don’t work as well with a fMRI strapped to their head. Do you think the study took that into account?

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    • Well, if the study had people with clean desks with fMRIs strapped to their heads and people with messy desks with the same setup, wouldn’t they all be on the same level?

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  2. I had always believed that a cluttered desk cluttered your brain. However I just heard another theory — a cluttered brain creates a cluttered desk. It has given me something to ponder.

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  3. I’ve always had a pretty cluttered desk (and brain). As an interesting side note, how do you manage to keep your desk clean? For years I attempted to keep a clean desk but failed until I eventually just accepted that I’m more of a piler. Do you manage to always put something away in an organized fashion immediately after using it? Do you clean up at the end of the day each day? Do you have a very disciplined system of throwing away most papers? What do your folders look like?

    I’ve never really asked a clean desk person how he/she manages to make it work, and I imagine that most messy desk people are like me–we don’t want a messy desk, but we’ve resigned ourselves to it because things we’ve tried have not resulted in a clean desk a day/week/month later.

    As I reflect on this, it may be a difficult question for a clean desk person to answer in a way that’ll actually help a messy desk person–we may just be wired differently. So I’ll ask 2 things. (1) Clean desk people: walk me through a day of keeping your desk clean–what do you actually do to make this happen. (2) Are there any former messy deskers (real messy deskers, not closet clean deskers who are so clean that they consider a little clutter messy) who have actually found a system that works for you and keeps your area clean?

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    • Trev–See, the thing is, I’m a big of a piler too, but the key is that I keep it to one pile. Every now and then I go through the pile and sort it into my files, but the pile does get quite high sometimes. But it’s only one pile–the rest of the desk stays free and clear.

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  4. What’s interesting is a messy desker living with a clean desker! Rewards: he does the dishes and empties the dishwasher. Pitfall: he insists on unpacking his suitcase on a trip and arranging his toilet articles in exact alignment before seeing the world. God forbid you get in line behind him at airport security!

    Could messy people be more creative!

    I’ve always fancied myself a messy perfectionist–a piler (with a conscience) who usually knows what exactly is in each pile, and files or trashes it when it’s no longer useful.
    Excess vs. moderation. Are you a male biblical Martha or Mary? I don’t want to be remembered by “My she was a great housekeeper!” Nice thing about getting older is you can no longer see the dust. Love John’s ability to be pithy!

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    • Ruth–Interesting that you and your husband are somewhat of opposites in those regards. You made it work! I’ve struggled with messier housemates, but as long as they contain their mess to their bedroom, it works out just fine.

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  5. I find this topic and question very intriguing!

    I am not the cleanest person, but I do have some OCD tendencies… I would have never thought I could leave a messy desk,.. until I did.

    I have an overwhelming amount of work to do. I know my attention to detail, care for my clients, and perfectionism adds to the problem. I worked at the company I am at for 2 1/2 years with a carefully organized (but visually “messy”) desk. Then I worked for another company for 1 1/2 years in the similar business/job title. While at this place I had the cleanest most organized desk of all my coworkers. Though I worked less hours, I found the work load easy to get done in the allotted time. My attention to detail was often praised, so that factor was not lacking.

    I am now back at the old company and again have a messy desk. I know where everything is and keep it all out verses in drawers because I don’t want all the things I need to do to get lost or “hidden” from view.

    I like both jobs equally, so what is my “problem”?? How can I go from the cleanest desk to the “messiest” desk? and what does this say about me??

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  6. Living with a neatnik? well nobody is 100% anything.
    I have to clean out his closet because he hangs up clothes he’s worn. I clean behind the stuff on the kitchen counter he misses. I clean the fridge. But I leave my shoes in the livingroom and shed “clothes” on a chair. Not forever, but you get the idea.

    Since we’ve been together 50 years, why would I mess with his OCD. My Dad said “He will let you do what you want.” Shared values–minor details like how you squeeze your toothpaste are easy: we each have our own tube and our own side of the sink. He’s funny; I laugh. I like firm pillows; he likes flat ones. Commitment and trust are the missing links here.

    What did your boss care if you were neat or messy? The end result is the important thing, unless you’re obnoxious. Do you produce in your job? Personal Key: Does someone love you more than himself and let you be yourself? Sorry I veered from messy desks…. I’m not in sinc with your experience viewpoint.

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  7. Odd argument and I’m actually kind of shocked you’d ask that in an interview. Maybe it depends on what industry you work in, but very few people have clean desks around my office (an ad agency) and no one in the creative department does. Some will clean off their desk at the end of the day, but during the day? No way. If your desk is clean during the day the only thing you’d have time for is cleaning! Seriously, those with the cleaner desks around here tend to be the least efficient – just saying. Maybe it’s because the paper we push around here can’t fit into a neat little pile – it’s not possible.

    Also, to say it hinders creativity??? No, most creatives I know need a certain lack of focus at times to be creative. It’s not something you can focus on and do – it requires a little accidental inspiration sometimes. There are a some creative people who are very tidy, most are the complete opposite. Most creatives I know surround themselves in clutter in their work spaces for inspiration.

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    • Christine–Here’s one specific example where I’ve seen a messy desk not only reflect negatively on performance, but it actually hinders performance: At my work, a lot of things are cyclical. We do a lot of the same things at the same time every year. Each year, we build upon what we learned the previous year, and we try to do it better the next year. This takes many different shapes and forms in other jobs–you might write code for one website that you build off of in the future.

      The tricky thing is, if you can’t find what you did last year, it makes it really hard to improve upon it this year. That becomes particularly difficult if someone else needs to build upon what you worked on the previous year (or month, or week), especially if you’re not around.

      This means that the most effective employees (in this one area) tend to be really good at tracking projects. They make their job openly accessible to the people around them so that the organization as a whole can improve. In a way, they approach their job as if they might get hit by a bus tomorrow, and someone else will need to step up to fill their position.

      Messy desk people, from my experience, tend to take the opposite approach. Sure, they have a “system” for organizing everything, but no one else understands it. And it undoubtedly overflows to the other ways they track their projects.

      I’m sure you can think of a time when you just needed to look at something really quick that a coworker had worked on, but that coworker hadn’t tracked it or put it in an intuitive place on the server. Maybe they’re the type of person who saves all of their files to their desktop. Would you rather work with that person, or the person who shares their work in an intuitive way with the team?

      When you interview people, sometimes the direct questions get stock answers. If you ask someone if they’re a team player, they’ll say yes. If you ask someone if they’re collaborative and organized, they’ll say yes. Of course they’ll say yes. The correct answer–the answer needed to get the job–is yes.

      But if you ask them about their desk, you’ll get an honest answer that can be extrapolated to mean other things. As I said, I put little weight in the answers. But it was a little slice of insight that I’m glad is now corroborated by scientific evidence.

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      • I still disagree and all my work experience does as well. I understand your logic and again maybe it’s a factor of workplace size and style, but we have very specific company-wide organizational tools (how the server is organized for example) and you are expected to follow them. If you don’t, you will be scolded – if it continues it will play a significant role in your yearly review and compensation.

        Again, I fail to see the connection in my work place, because honestly the ones least conforming to those rules of joint organization are the ones that have clean desks. They want things organized their way and they’ll organize their stuff in a way that’s useful for others when they get to it. The three people I’ve worked with in the past that have very clean, organized desks are always the ones who save things to their desktops instead of on the server and only move them when they absolutely have to. They’re also the ones that never have old files – usually because they’ve kept their desk clean by doing a lot of purging and ended up throwing them out. I guess I just find my experiences completely different than yours.

        We also have a position called ‘Traffic Manager’ which is the person responsible for trafficking and tracking projects through the agency. I’d say it’s one of the most difficult jobs at an agency and requires great organizational skills. I’ve worked with both great and mediocre traffic managers in my career and all have notoriously messy offices (like known throughout the agency as the messiest office around). It’s just not possible in their job to keep it clean and still do their work. Is the mess organized? Absolutely. Is it clean? No way.

        I just don’t think a clean desk is really all that telling. It can mean quite a few different things.

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        • Christine–That’s really interesting that they people you know who don’t follow the rules about saving to the server are the ones with the cleanest desks. That hasn’t been my experience, but it’s a good reminder that everyone’s different!

          And like I said, I no longer ask that question about the desks because there was something off about it. I am curious, though–if you were interviewing someone and you wanted to determine if they were the type of person who would track their projects well, what would you ask them to determine that? (Assuming that if you ask them: Do you track your projects for full transparency and collaboration?, they’re going to answer yes regardless of what the true answer is.)

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        • I can make an easy off-shoot to this clean desk idea. I currently am about to leave working in a University Research lab, and the sentiment that Jamey had about being hit by a bus does apply. All the data I have collected needs to be on the server which is not that alien, but my lab notebook which has all of my tests and the protocols I used (or should at least) need to be organized and referenced in my lab notebook so that someone will be able to use the data I have generated and repeat it. I personally have a very messy home desk, but I would like to say that my work space in the lab, while perhaps haphazardness demands a need for cleanliness and system for materials and protocols for the work to be of lasting value. Also the fact that multiple undergrads and grad students use the same materials in the lab makes mess hard to work in. In this vein I would say the question of how clean is your lab notebook would be very pertinent as well.

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          • Kevin–That’s a good point that this applies particularly well to labs and places where a lot of data accumulates over time. People inevitably move on, and if you can’t find the data they’ve compiled, it makes a big difference.

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