The Problem With Being Organized
I think there’s a reason that college students, generally regarded as some of the most intelligent people in our society (by and large, not to say there aren’t plenty of dimwits out there), have so much trouble keeping their dorms and apartments clean. And it’s not because they have lower standards and are more tolerant of messiness, though I’d assume that to be true. College students need room to grow and thrive, and taking time out of their constantly-morphing schedules to do menial things like clean house requires a lot of overhead.
You might argue that having a clean and organized living space might let students work more quickly and efficiently, even if there’s an initial cost in dissolving the chaos. I would tend to agree, but I also offer the following counterpoint — How is it that messy people can still manage to get things done, despite not having any human-recognizable system of organization? (I’m proud to be one of those people, and I prefer the term “organized chaos.”) In my opinion, the brain eventually adjusts to this chaos such that it can locate items and do whatever else it needs to do with little to no delay compared to your average neat freak.
Now then, on the flip side — What exactly is wrong with organization? Nothing… that is, if you don’t mind spending 10% of your time to garner a 2% increase in productivity (yes, I completely made those numbers up). My point is this: The reason that college students so often prefer chaos is that having a strict system of organization limits their ability to change that system. It’s really quite intuitive; when was the last time you saw a bill run through Congress in less than 60 seconds? Most likely never. But if the United States was run by a dictator (Bush, while almost there, doesn’t quite make the cut; and no, I am obviously not advocating this system of government), laws could be created, changed, or repealed in no time flat.
It’s just something to think about. All through adolescence, we were told to keep our rooms clean, our beds made, and were forced to help with a large-scale scrub-down any time company was expected. How certain are we that the benefits of this overrode its drawbacks?
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