The disappearing desk trick

In chaos, there is fertility.
Anaïs Nin

Trick of mine: the disappearing desk

The photo above shows a magic trick of mine: how to make every work surface and desk space disappear in a pile of junk! Ta-daaa, and it’s gone. Have you tried it? It’s way too easy to make this happen – and then I always forget the spell that reverses the mess back to order again… It spreads onto the floor, and the bookshelf and sofa and living room table too.

I love a neat tidy desk – but I can’t create there. Or rather, I can start there but I end up with a hurricane mess in just a few minutes. And blind to the piles, I continue onwards.

How about you?

19 Responses

  1. Me neither!! I just uploaded a photo of my desk a few days ago. On the one hand, I love the mess and I know exactly where everything is, I swear! On the other, I need to clean at least a little bit up before i can start anything new :)

  2. They tell me there’s wood under the piles of paper and art supplies that has collected around my computer. I’m not convinced, having not seen any evidence for quite a long while.

  3. I love your blog but rarely comment, had to today because I relate so well to this and love your sense of humor as well! Thanks for keeping it real and keeping us all laughing.

    • Thanks Maureen and everybody else, for taking the time (and courage) to comment. It really means a lot to me. :-) Makes me wanna find my desk and create something right now!

  4. I do the same thing….Eight hours of creating and four hours to clean up and organize it all…lol…On the other hand, when I clean up, I have to figure out where everything goes or make room for things that are no longer neatly packaged. It always reveals a treasure that I had forgotten about….I also like to think….It’s kind of like the old saying. A messy cook is a good cook…I say,”a messy artist is a great artist”

    • Melissa, love that saying! A messy artist is the one creating indeed, a neat one is probably just thinking about creating! :-) But sometimes I wonder why the cleaing up needs to take up so much time (take time & energy away from starting and just creating)…

  5. Ahh, you are a girl of my kind.

    My desk tends to be buried in things as well. In fact, it’s very rarely a workspace, and much more often the place to put all kinds of things (because if they are visible I won’t forget about them). That includes anything from film festival flyers, my sketchbook, invoices, essential stationary, some decorative items, little packets of sugar (so I don’t have to run to the kitchen), a fruit basket and whatnot…

    • Alua, I agree. It’s great to box things away, but once they’re out of sight I SO forget about those projects and never finish… The balance between keeping it in sight and having space to work on is difficult!

  6. I fully embrace the quotation by Anais Nin! I am always trying to tidy things up and keep my desk clear so I have space to work, but within moments it is completely covered again. I have to believe that I actually like to work that way, or it wouldn’t keep happening!

  7. I tend to work in a tidy and organised way but it’s AFTER that everything explodes and takes several attempts to put away.

  8. I’m a pile maker, and tend to work on new projects right on top of existing piles. Then it gets too much for even me, I clear off my desk. Usually I find some little bit of something that inspires to me get creating and the clean up is over. My husband calls it my “comfort clutter”.

  9. SNAP! Another of my tricks is the ability to take a desk of ANY size and quickly reduce the working area to a maximum six inch by six inch square. Try it for yourself….. it works every time!

    Marion

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