Less is more

Less is more, or leave space for creativity.

Like many writers I love reading, as well as researching. Over the years my bookshelves had become more than a little overcrowded. There were texts of every description sharing space. Novels of high Victorian romance rubbing shoulders with biographies. Art, music and history all lined up like parade ground soldiers awaiting inspection. To the book-loving eye, my office, come library was an Aladdin’s cave. But to me it was fast becoming an open Pandora’s box, forever threatening to confuse and confound me in my every endeavour. The problem wasn’t really with the books, or the shelves. Not even the content was really at fault. The problem was in reality with me. You see my trouble came from an instinct born of a working class upbringing. Growing up in an impoverished environment I was a hoarder of material possessions. I looked on books as proof of education and knowledge acquired. My desk, filing and other furniture also threatened to overflow.

 

This thinking very nearly led me to my downfall. I was saved from my fit of confusion by the stray words of a good friend. This friend of mine Shalayla had come around and was sitting talking to me, whilst I was working. She glanced around the room and smiled and said, “Less is more, leave space for creativity”. I stopped what I was doing and looked up. Having asked what she mean’t by her statement, she explained. I can’t recall every word that was said, just the skeleton of the conversation. However the basic content has remained with me and those 7 words have become my new rule of working.  To this lady’s mind, the more clutter that encroached upon a workspace, the less clear would be the mind of the worker. I thought about this and asked her for any further suggestions on the matter. “Charity”. She said, give as much as you can to charity. I went through the entire contents, not only of my library, but also of the entire room. In little more than a week I had filled three boxes and 9 large black bags.

 

These items were far from redundant, however they were from my new viewpoint. My bookshelf is now a modest one. How did I arrive at just what to get rid of and what to keep? Well I’ll tell you my simple system and let you be the judge, as to whether it might work for you too. Since I work at my desk and spend most of my time at the computer. I decided to begin with all those books that I kept for research. I soon realised that the majority of my research was done online anyway. This showed the weakness in the books that never even made it off the shelf these days. Many of the volumes I’d kept from the time before I’d even had a computer.

 

Next I looked through my novels and assorted odds and ends books. Here I applied a set of simple questions and answers, to ascertain whether a book should go, or stay. I asked myself how long I had owned that particular work? How many times I had in fact read it, in full, or in part? And lastly would I read it again? I shocked myself at the answer to my own questions. Not only were there books that I hadn’t even looked at in 10 years, or more. There were novels that having read I couldn’t imagine ever going back to again. So why on earth was I keeping them? Using this easy system I moved on from the books to paperwork and beyond. Amongst my papers I found a great many duplicates and computer printouts, which I no longer had any use for. I found that I was able to reduce still further my pile of needed research material, by scanning and backing up. I scanned documents and photos, saving them to disk, as well as hard drive. In a very short time I could breathe in my clutter free space. The only word I can find to express the feeling was liberating.

 

As I look back now I begin to see clearly that I had made a prison cell to trap my own creative flow. Now I work on a clear and ordered desk. This may not be to everyone’s taste. All I can say is that this worked for me. It is now so easy for me to find anything I need very quickly. Since much of my work included copying and pasting between computer files, having these on disk now simplifies the whole process. My new approach is not only easier and a lot more fun. It is also time saving. My work is so much more enjoyable these days.