Publish at February 24 2015 Updated November 05 2025
Supermarkets, DIY stores and specialist art and hobby stores are not short of suggestions and storage media of all kinds. Plastic or metal boxes, wooden cubes with multiple drawers, cardboard sorters, retractable tote boxes, in all shapes, materials and colors, are all catching our eye and trying to meet the need to tidy up our everyday world.
While interior design magazines (and websites dedicated to the same subject) abound with advice aimed at making our lives easier. They teach us how to make the most of even the smallest space. They tell us that we need to organize our environment, even simplify it, purify it and empty it, so that we can flourish in it, realize our full potential and give free rein to our creative spirit.
But research has shown that too much order stifles creativity, and that an untidy office opens the door to more fantasy and creative capacity. This is what Stanislas Kraland points out in an article published on HuffPost. In it, he refers to the work of psychologist Kathleen Vohs, who in August 2013 reported in the journal Psychological Science the results of experiments conducted in orderly or, on the contrary, disorderly rooms (or offices). If, according to some studies, "a clean environment does tend to stimulate behavior that is good for others but also good for ourselves", analysis of the results of this series of short tests hints at the benefits we can derive from an untidy office, which encourages creative thinking and the emergence of new ideas.
It can happen that by demanding too much order, we discourage the (formative and structuring) adventures sparked by our cherubs' imaginations, which themselves are nurtured by chance encounters that can only occur in a heterogeneous and preferably cluttered universe. And it can even happen that an over-ordered children's room, where every game and toy has its definite place, ends up being transformed into a museum, in which no apocalyptic battle scene between toy soldiers and pterodactyls will ever take place.
This is what psychiatrist Alberto Eiguer urges us to think about in his interview with La Croix newspaper. For him, "a slight disorder can be a source of lively creativity, because it leaves room for chance and surprise". He reminds us that "order corresponds to a need for control", through which "certain pre-existing tensions in the family are expressed". And he adds that "even if order is valued in society, we mustn't forget that it can be excessive". Tidying equipment "isolates everything". "This reflects a fear of mixing that also exists in people's minds. Too much order is also ineffective, because excessive order paralyzes people's ability to use objects.
If the role of museums is indeed to present us, in a well-considered order, with works and traces testifying to man's creativity, wouldn't trying to organize creativity "in motion" deprive it of the unexpected, the unpredictable, of discoveries and even chance encounters that are quick to develop and amplify it?
It's precisely by going beyond classifications and breaking down the barriers that are often hastily erected between seemingly foreign fields, that we encourage the emergence of unusual enterprises. And when science meets the culinary arts, scientists and chefs come up with the most surprising projects and, in a positive and prolific synergy, fully express their creative potential.
The Paris-based Animafac website, a national network of student associations, states that "since November 2012, Paris-Sud University has been home to the French Center for Culinary Innovation". The center is "the brainchild of Raphaël Haumont (a researcher from the Faculty of Science) and Thierry Marx (a Michelin-starred chef and champion of molecular cuisine)". Combining experimentation and passion, the arts of the table and science, in the name of education, "arguing that gastronomy is a very good way of approaching scientific notions, they organize conferences, workshops and demonstrations aimed at students and the general public".
Back in 2008, Thierry Marx teamed up with scientist Jérôme Bibette, and "this art/science collaboration (gave rise to) new sensations", reads the presentation document, dedicated to the 2008 exhibition "Dans la Sphère de Thierry Marx et autre invention culinaire" organized at Le Laboratoire in Paris, "a center for artistic experimentation and design in the heart of Paris (which) invites the Parisian and international public to discover cultural creation at the frontiers of science". Combining their experience and knowledge, the two creators and researchers demonstrated their inventiveness by attempting to answer such singular questions as: "How can we create marbles whose envelope is as light as a soap bubble, and whose explosion in the mouth reveals all the unique flavour of a food or dish?
It's true that many techniques designed to develop creativity are based on classification. For example, the checklist, a practice derived from brainstorming, proposes to support reflection or the resolution of a concrete problem (such as the improvement of a product or the creation of a new object) by subjecting participants to a list of questions. In 1971, Robert F. Eberle, for school use, classified them into 7 categories under the acronym SCAMPER (Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Suggest new uses, Eliminate, Rearrange).
In addition to these methods, today's digital world offers a wide range of interesting tools that call for classification and can support our creativity.
Mind maps are thought organization tools. This concept, which some trace back to Aristotle, was developed in the 70s by English psychologist Tony Buzan. Today, there are a host of applications, both online and offline, that enable us to create these diagrams. The mind map is "a highly structured creativity tool (that) enables information to be organized intuitively and shared", writes psychopedagogue Laëtitia Carlier.
We might also mention the existence of tools such as Evernote, which, as we read on the dedicated site, organizes documents, texts and images, making it possible to find everything quickly... A tool with multiple functions, "from your inspirations to the final version of your projects, Evernote is the ally of your work", we are assured on the download page.
It's just one of many "competitors" trying to establish themselves as the essential tools for connected, nomadic creators.
More specific, applications such as yWriter or Scrivener offer writers support in their editorial organization. As Penelope Chester explains on her blog, yWriter allows you to classify and organize your story into chapters and scenes, with sections devoted to characters (or places) and their descriptive files. You can also insert images, comments and links, to build a coherent, structured universe.
So, just as our little boxes come in handy when it comes to creating a serene creative space, where the sight of too much clutter doesn't distract the attention of someone who's naturally rather orderly, the use of methods or tools can sometimes be useful.
It's undoubtedly a question of temperament: while for some, disorder is the source of the greatest ideas, for others, a little or even a lot of order (and classification) will be welcome!
Or perhaps a clever blend of order and disorder is the ideal "formula"...to be found?
To go further, read " Developing creativity at school ", where Guy Aznar writes:
"The aim of education is to teach children to think and reason. It's about clarifying, ordering, learning to integrate norms and rules. In general, the vocation of the school is to 'create order' (...) However, one of the phases in the creative process consists in questioning order, destroying logical sequences, encouraging undisciplined thinking...".
Illustration: Jef Safi, Flickr, CC license
References:
"Tidy desk or messy desk? Each has its benefits", Association for Psychological Science
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/tidy-desk-or-messy-desk-each-has-its-benefits.html
"Ranger son bureau ou être plus créatif, il faut choisir", Stanislas Kraland, huffingtonpost.fr
http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2013/08/08/ranger-son-bureau-creatif_n_3712703.html
"A little clutter can be a source of creativity", Alberto Eiguer
http://www.la-croix.com/Famille/Parents-Enfants/Dossiers/Alberto-Eiguer-Un-leger-desordre-peut-etre-source-de-creativite-2014-12-10-1277824
Le laboratoire, a center for artistic experimentation and design in the heart of Paris
http://www.lelaboratoire.org/
"Dans la Sphère de Thierry Marx ... et autre invention culinaire", press kit
http://www.lelaboratoire.org/images/archives/archives-4/thierry-marx-dossier-presse.pdf
"Carte mentale, outil pédagogique", Laëtitia Carlier
http://ien-montpellier-nord.ac-montpellier.fr/IMG/pdf/La_carte_mentale_outil_pedagogique.pdf
Innovating with the SCAMPER method - Manager Go!
https://www.manager-go.com/gestion-de-projet/dossiers-methodes/scamper
"Mind maps: which software to use?", Tilékol, teaching, learning, sharing (without getting bored)
http://www.tilekol.org/cartes-mentales-quel-logiciel-utiliser
Scrivener - https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview
"yWriter to help you write your novel", Thot Cursus
http://cursus.edu/institutions-formations-ressources/technologie/23833/ywriter-pour-vous-aider-ecrire-votre/
Penelope Chester's words, yWriter presentation
http://lesmotsdepenelopechester.over-blog.com/article-ywriter-82074375.html
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