This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: If we're to follow the philosophy of organizer extraordinaire Marie Kondo, a tidy home is a better home. Albert Einstein, however, might have contested that point.
"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind," goes a quote widely attributed to the famed physicist, "of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?" My newly published research, which studied 22 New Zealand households, also challenges the conventional wisdom that mess is a problem that must be fixed. Far from being a symptom of poor organization, mess can help families function and make life run more smoothly. Consider the spaces in our homes that serve more than one purpose and where things tend to pile up: a living room that doubles as a play area or a bedroom that also serves as a study.
One couple told me how their dining table becomes a "drop zone" for belongings such as bags and beverage bottles before it's cleared each evening. Another person described how leaving something on his kitchen island made him less likely to forget it when leaving the house. Disorderly as each of those spaces might have appeared, they served daily routines that might have been disrupted for the sake of a tidier-looking home.
We might think of clutter as stuff that simply gets in our way. But often, a messy space is just one that is being useful to us. For one mom, her kitchen counter served as a dining table and a workspace for her and her daughter.
Pens, toys and other items might accumulate, but "as long as there's still space to eat, then I kind of just let it be." Mess can also tell us much about family relationships. One dad would leave his daughter's sweater hanging on the back of a chair rather than put it away. She had previously left it on the floor, and he wanted to acknowledge her progress.
"So I regard that as a win," he said. Another person told me she put up with some of her partner's mess because "he also lives here." For her, a shared home should not be organized only around one person's idea of tidiness. Leaving some things alone was a way of recognizing that the space belonged to both of them.
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