A random thought passed through my mind this morning as I was going about my morning practices:
If clutter is the enemy of creativity, why are so many creatives hopelessly cluttered?
Maybe the thought wasn’t all that random. We have been talking about mental clutter in our Journey to the Center of Your Heart group coaching program all week long. We’ve talked about the clutter of all of those BRILLIANT IDEAS that pop into our heads at inopportune times that demand our attention. The ones that take us off task, that sound like the BEST IDEA EVER and ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO BE DONE RIGHT NOW!!! Except that they aren’t… because the next great idea comes along and the old great idea goes to that cluttery spot in our brains called the lost island of good ideas.
Come on, admit it… your lost island of good ideas is about the size of Australia right now isn’t it?
Yeah, I know. But please don’t ask me how I know. Just understand I only write about things I have a very intimate first hand knowledge of.
I am a Creative. I write, I paint, I am a photographer, a weed collector, (um… I mean gardener) a foodie-cook, an actor and a director. Professionally, I coach creatives into transforming their lives from a dull To-Do list driven existence to living a vibrant, heart-filled, passionate, exciting life where their creative passions are a front and center part of their thriving world.
And yet… for a large majority of frustrated creatives, the one thing that follows many of them around like Pig-pen’s dust cloud is clutter. Physical-stuff clutter. Emotional-feeling clutter. Big Idea- gonna do-it-someday-clutter… To Do List clutter. Fake Friendship Clutter. (You know who they are- they suck up all your time and you don’t want to hang out with them anyhow.) “Supposed to” and “Should” and “Guilt” and “Nagging Voices in our Head” clutter.
To be clear, I’m not talking about creative stuff. All creatives collect stuff. Our hobbies have tools. They have shiny things.We are kinda, sorta, all right… heavily addicted to shiny, new, bright, novel, interesting thingie-doohickies. We stick them on things, glue them places, write about them, twirl them, stare at them and overall just pick them up and put them down without even knowing we touched them.
That’s not clutter to a creative. That’s our stuff. Please don’t touch our stuff. It sparks our creativity. We NEED our stuff.
I’m talking about clutter. Clutter is the opposite of stuff. It doesn’t spark creativity. It repels creativity. We see it, we feel it lurking and we run in the opposite direction. It sucks creative breath. It makes it hard to swallow, let alone have a creative thought. Creatives are allergic to clutter.
And yet….I have clutter. You have clutter. But if we want to be LIVING CREATIVE here is what we have to face about clutter:
Clutter is the enemy of Creativity. It is an evil, sneaky bastard. It eats creativity, feeds off of it and then breeds. It piles up in our heads, in our lives, messes with our relationships, stunts our businesses and overwhelms us.
You want a more vibrant life?
Get rid of clutter.
You want to be more creative?
Get rid of clutter.
You want more love in your life, both toward yourself and others?
Get rid of clutter.
You want more clarity?
Get rid of clutter.
You want a more successful business?
Get rid of clutter.
I think you get the idea. I have to go. I have some clutter of my own to kick out. After all, it’s a journey. Not a destination.
If you are ready to start living a vibrant, heart-filled, passionate, exciting life where your creative passions are a front and center part of your thriving world, get in touch. Your Creative Life is waiting.
I have found this to be very true. To me clutter is like visual noise, very distracting. I need a calm and serene space around me in order to do good work. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it can’t be chaotic.
I agree, Betsy, the minute a room is too crazy, I tend to find excuses to walk back out of it. Not only do I not get my work done, I don’t stay in the room for very long!
I so agree with this. Clutter chokes off my creativity. It keeps me thinking of other things and steals my energy. I would much rather use that energy to be creative.
That’s too funny! I actually can compartmentalize my clutter — simply refuse to see it until I have time to deal with it. BUT to keep myself sane, I actually schedule “de-junking” into my weekly schedule. I set the timer for an hour on Thursday mornings and GET TO IT.
When the timer dings, I put my clutter-blinders back on and get to work.
And it’s working! I’m not clutter free BUT since May I’ve gotten rid of a boat-load of stuff.
Kimberly Eldredge\’s last post… Happy October!
Kimberly,
I can walk through the messiest room in the world and not see the mess. I am blind to it. I won’t work in there. I won’t be creative in there. I mentally fall asleep there. My brain shuts down everywhere. I can “Veg” there. Watch movies, binge eat, read a novel, sleep the day away, social media the day away or gossip like a pro. Nothing good for me. But if I want to live a “Wide Awake” healthy life, it isn’t going to happen in a room like that. The second I “Wake up” and pay attention to my surroundings, the mess is on the chopping block.
Love this post! Clutter vs Stuff – battle of the century! (Or maybe that’s just the status quo in my house?, she says guiltily!). You are so right. Clutter is cloying, cloudy, suffocating and counter-productive. And Stuff shines, inspires and dazzles us. The trick is, identifying which is which and making sure you minimise unnecessary Stuff, and keep clearing Clutter. Decluttering is so freeing – yet so hard for some of us. Thanks for this reminder and dose of inspiration to tackle it!
I love your point that some of the most creative people are the messiest, drowning in clutter! So true. It’s a huge personality style thing as well as most highly creatives are informal in their environment. And this is the catch, just as you have said. Not matter my style or what I want to create, it will be harder and slower in a space with clutter; whether that’s emotional or spacial.
Thanks for the reminder to tidy up and get the most from my mind and my talents!!
This is such an interesting question. I wonder if part of what helps creative people be so creative is the fact that there is creativity lurking in the “clutter.” You cannot really create anything if all you have is empty space. On the other hand, I guess it’s those spaces that actually make the room for the creativity to be able to flourish and have room to manifest itself. This makes me thing about whether I can do things in my environment to stimulate my own creativity. Thanks for sharing this!