Think of it this way: You could win a Nobel Peace Prize for uncovering undiscovered species, you save tons of money that by waiting until your pants rot into shorts, and, hey, Cheetos are fucking delicious.
- Redemption!
- Passport to Success: The Essential Guide to Business Culture and Customs in Americas Largest Trading Partners;
- #1 New York Times best-selling author?
- Odes from a Cluttered Mind.
- Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Annotated)?
In many ways, there's nothing wrong with being a slob. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone out there who wouldn't want to have something in common with Homer Simpson or Ferris Bueller. It's also a perverse a badge of honor to those who swim upstream and avoid the metaphorical bear who catches you in his teeth and tears your head off. It's a statement that you have decided to go against society's nasty pressures and do what feels right to you, even at some risk.
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That badge can be found in the now all-too-common phrase "hot mess," which essentially celebrates week-old clothing, smeared mascara and a room full of Coke bottles, plus some clumsiness and bad breakups for good measure. Take, for instance, the Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin by way of carelessly leaving uncovered petri dishes in his sink. If that Scottish bastard had given in and picked up a sponge, we could all be passing out judgments from an iron lung right now. Along with Fleming, Albert Einstein, Francis Bacon, and Alan Turing were all notoriously messy men and essentially saved us all from extinction with their contributions to society.
Numerous studies have concluded the same general point about messiness: Take this survey from the University of Minnesota that tested the hypothesis that a messy desk equates to a messy mind.
The study showed that "participants in a disorderly room were more creative than participants in an orderly room. Sure, tidiness has its benefits, too — you see more of the metaphorical fine print of life when it's not covered in stray socks and dirt. But overall the unkempt life is where it's at. Does this mean that geniuses are born from the crusts of empty pizza boxes? After all, you can devote a lot more brain power to a task at hand when you're not distracted with a dirty room.
Still, let us revel in the messes we've created before we're forced to clean them up. Messiness is goes both ways, so finding a good halfway point between a tidy life and looking like you just walked out of a dead whale's asshole should work.
An Ode to Being a Slob, Adulthood and Instagram Be Damned
Science Shows How People With Messy Desks Are Actually Different Than Everyone Else OK, so maybe that phrase had been around a few thousand years before Corgan sang it, but all it takes is a singer from a '90s grunge band to drive an idea into the brains of repeat listeners. Giphy The slobbiness stigma: Brittany Packnett wants you to SayHerName. Trans male models and barriers to entry; exploring a rash of taxi-driver suicides.
Sounds simple, yes, but adding a few lists to your life really works.
With all your responsibilities organized in one place, you can strategically choose what to do next instead of flying by the seat of your pants. Check out a few of my favorite tips for maximizing your to-do list. But, a to-do list alone can only get you so far more on that later. To go a step further, make a priority list in addition to or based on your to-do list.
This is where you choose impact over what you might feel is urgent.
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That being said, a word of caution: To cut out some of those less-than-urgent responsibilities, try an automating service, like Zapier , which gives you the ability to delegate repetitive work tasks to a personal internet assistant. The beauty of this kind of automatic delegation is that you can simply set it and forget it—majorly cutting down on your to-do list.
So instead of interrupting the flow of your workday with little tasks, you can concentrate on the high-impact stuff that requires your full focus and attention.
Surprisingly, this strategy can also work for your mind: So, save yourself from slowly drowning subject line by subject line by doing some inbox spring cleaning. First, unsubscribe from promotional emails that you never actually open and turn off those clogging notifications from LinkedIn and Facebook. I also like to use programs like Boomerang or Followup.
An Ode to Being a Slob, Adulthood and Instagram Be Damned
When you have a never-ending list of things to do, it often feels counterproductive to spend time reflecting—more thoughts will just add to the mental clutter, right? But, in my experience, charging ahead without taking time to reflect will just make the mess worse. So, start making time for quiet reflection or journaling. By unpacking and articulating your zooming thoughts, instead of feeling like one big exclamation argh!