I was just thinking about this. My husband and I think in totally opposite ways. He's always asking me why I did this instead if that.

I can be organized or I can be creative, but not both at the same time. I believe that it is a time and focus issue. You will have what you focus upon. If I'm organized, I run out of time to be creative and vice-versa.

My workspace when I write is "structured chaos." Yes the papers and materials form piles that look messy to the outsider, but when I want a particular piece of writing, I know just where to find it. Those piles have been arranged.

Compulsively neat. Not as bad as some I have worked with who can't stand a piece of paper that isn't aligned at right angles to the desk, but I do need things tidy or I get stressed out.

Several years ago, I was working with a bunch of scientists and engineers on ground tests of the instrument we built for the Hubble Space Telescope. One guy was a hyper-organizer who spent much of the down time during tests putting away pencils and organizing paper logs into binders. I still remember another guy coming in and saying "where the hell is my calculator?" It had been picked up and carefully placed in a canister of pens, rulers, and other office supplies.

"Your organizational style -- or lack thereof?"

A pile for everything, and everything in it's pile.

I'm just not interested enough to do more than that, and it works for me.

Drives hubby nuts, but then, if it truly aggravated him beyond tolerance, he would organize it himself.

If it ain't broke.....

That pile of papers looks mighty precarious, like the slightest vibration could cause an avalanche! If that happened, would it be a disaster? Or would it be like rearranging grains of sand on the beach? :-)

There was a best-selling book a few years ago about why messiness can be a good thing - does anyone remember it?

Found it - it's: "A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder - How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and on-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place" by Eric Abrahamson & David H. Freedman.

Back in the 80's I casually knew a woman who was a college professor, extremely neat and articulate on the outside, dressed fashionably, was an all around presentable lady. Very social as well.

She made the news when Long Beach had to condemn her home that was filled with dozens of living and dead cats, dogs and birds, years of piled up garbage, broken toilets...

I strive to keep it tidy in the shared areas. The kitchen is always in a bit of an uproar-two totally different diets going on and it's hard to keep up. My husband is a fairly tidy fellow in his areas.
But MY room? It's chaos and it's my chaos and I'm more comfortable there than anywhere on Earth. Entering it shifts my mental gears. My BFF can tell over the phone if I'm in my room claiming I have a looser, 2-drinks quality. To others, an uninviting space, but it's intentionally unwelcoming, the key to solitude I crave.

I won't tolerate post-its on the computer screen. No way. I have two things right in front of me: a 4x6 spiral-bound notebook which is the destiny of ALL things I need to remember, and a crib sheet to refer to when I need to write an è or an € or a ©.

There's a credenza to my right which is a different story, but I wouldn't tolerate a mountainous stack of research paper.

My husband and I have decided an "early frat-boy/comic-geek motif", only much less fragrant, works best for us.

I remember years ago, there was a bumper sticker:

"A neat desk is a sign of A SICK MIND!!"
;-)

Both my wife and I are meticulously neat.

I have two icons on my desktop.

The garage is so tidy that I'm concerned our neighbors might be talking behind our backs.

Piles. But I can find things in them.