Desirable Disorder

There's some evidence that cluttered spaces can stoke creativity.

The theory is that by upsetting otherwise-structured spaces, like our homes or offices, we pull ourselves from predictable, routine mental pathways—heuristics for where everything is located, but also the mental shortcuts and rhythms and routines we fall into when those well-worn habitual grooves are present in the physical locations we occupy—and we're thus more prone to abstract thinking, novel associations, and a sort of freewheeling approach to problem solving.

There's evidence that this isn't the case, as well, and that occupying messy, disorganized spaces can actually be bad for us, in the sense that a lack of stability, structure, and predictability—especially over time—can wear us out, leave us more prone to getting sick and feeling stressed, and overall drain us because we're forced to think harder and invest more energy in every single small task and decision, rather than being able to relegate some of that work to previously produced systems, routines, and so on. That prevents us from becoming more creative because we’re essentially just so wiped out (possibly persistently) and don’t have any energy to spare for thinking about anything beyond the concrete, draining present.

It's also been posited that there's a subconscious tendency to relax and feel secure in spaces that we know the shape of, intuitively, without even having to think about it, and that's why we often feel "at home" in predictable spaces that are not our homes—that familiarity allows us to drop our psychological vigilance and decompress, recharge, etc.

A new bit of research published in the Journal of Retailing adds another interesting wrinkle to this conversation.

It would seem that disorder within secondhand retail spaces—thrift stores and such—can be beneficial for sales, as folks who visit such places tend to be turned-off by too much order and some moderate disorder presents them with the opportunity to forage and discover, and may ultimately allow them to invest whatever it is they find with additional emotional resonance of the sort we might typically invest in a risk-laden accomplishment or buried treasure.

The theory is that by having some order, but not too much, folks can step into these stores, generally know what part of the store to visit (cozy, intuitive understanding of one’s space), but then invest themselves in weeding through a lot of dross before eventually uncovering something beautiful, serviceable, or otherwise desirable (a conquerable challenge).

This process of discovery grants the uncovered object additional desirability, and it allows them to feel that they participated in an activity, rather than a conventional, friction-free consumer experience (there may be a bit of the IKEA Effect here: we tend to value things we helped make more than things we didn't, and the friction involved in discovering stuff in these stores might serve as the "making" component of that relationship).

This is interesting because of what it suggests about our tendency to find value and meaning in even minor hunts through piles and shelves and racks of used products, but also because of what it might indicate about our desire (perhaps even need) for minor frictions throughout our lives if we want to find more meaning in more things, and greater satisfaction in the activities in which we engage.