DO YOU THRIVE IN A MESS

[grrreg]

I have been falsely accused of living in a pig sty. That my desk looked like a hurricane blew through it. That missing persons could be in my bedroom and I'd never know.

To the untrained eye, these cliche idioms may seem true, but do you INTP people know better? Of course you do. If anyone bothered to ask me where a certain paper was, for instance, I could pull it out (possibly with some assistance holding a few books, an old cereal box , maybe the cat) from exactly where I knew I left it.

I have clashed with my employer (one of those people who refuse to believe you are actually capable of working in such an environment since his desk is blech pin straight blech) . He went as far as clearing my desk for me one day when I was out. Then had the gall to ask for something from it later in the day. I said you move it you lose it.

Case two: My BF has the nerve to say i never hang up my stuff or put it away. This is not true either. I take armfuls of things and put them in my closet periodically. It's holding capacity is not my concern.

I like to think I follow the natural order of things where entropy is just a fact of life that no one can deny. And didn't Einstein (another INTP) say the state of the desk represents the mind? If yours has nothing on it does that really entitle you to an opinion?

 

[Thread Killer]

Eh, it's the same for me. ESTJ likes to patronize me about it. He tells me to work on being organized. I have gotten actually better on this stuff through the years but I know I'll never be organized like a J type. It pisses me off, though, that idiots like him admire people who are creative and don't fit the mold on certain things, but then they can't see the connection with that and the negatives of such a personality. I dunno, but I grew up being told I'm of no worth based on stuff. I'm not using typology as an excuse for negative traits in me or anyone, but I think if more people understood it, they'd treat people who have certain problems a little more fairly and would maybe try to work with them and actually say things that benefit the persons instead of treating them like they are worthless in any and all matters. Being a detached 5w4 makes it worse because I keep all of my ideas and undertakings to myself so people like that just have no respect. Sometimes it makes me think that living is pointless if that's all you are met with, but I don't plan on ending my life anytime soon.

 

[EditorOne]

Messy but not to the point of dysfunction. I know where things are in that mess.

 

[Dissident]

Im a walking disaster, I could say there is some kind or order behind the mess but I would be fooling myself. I do generally find stuff, but it would be obviously easier if it was organized. My bosses (yes, I have two) usually make fun of me because of it.
I need a J girlfriend to put a little order in my life, and fast

 

[fullerene]

Thread Killer pretty much stole the words out of my mouth. Past experiences, the fight to be more organized, and the way my parents always saw me growing up too. I was almost even thrown into a rage the other week because of the contradiction when someone said they admired free spirited people, but didn't like this kid we both know because he was too weird... that's just eerie.

Otherwise yes... there's definitely no order to where I drop things, but I almost always know where they are (the exception is when it gets so cluttered that things get knocked off between the desk and wall. If I don't need it, I won't know I have it). I probably couldnt give you a list of all the things that I have, but if you asked me "where the x was" I could go grab it in a minute or two probably 85-90% of the time, as long as I was the one who put it there. Now I'm in college though, and I had a messy roommate last year too, so we did fine. No one to tell me to organize things their way.

He went as far as clearing my desk for me one day when I was out. Then had the gall to ask for something from it later in the day.

That's hysterical, btw (as long as they didn't get mad when you couldn't get it for them). My brother's in sales/marketing (very extroverted) and he forwarded me an email that was sent throughout his company titled "selling to introverts" to see if it had any merit. #4 on the list had to do with not moving stuff around while you were there. I thought the guy who wrote it was probably a J, because he based it on being "territorial," and I couldn't imagine myself caring if a salesman came in and shuffled stuff around to make room for a presentation, as long as I was there to see where he moved it... but maybe that's just me.

 

[Psycho Psocko]

I'm definitely a mess maker, and like EditorOne I have no problem finding what I'm looking for. I feel the need not only to clutter up every flat surface in sight, but the walls too. I've run out or room for any more posters (I need more space!) except on my doors. I have plans for those too. Even my television is surrounded by tiny plastic knick knacks (some of which have names written on the bottom). Something about the busyness just makes me feel at home; I don't know why. I like it, but at the same time I wouldn't be that sad if it all got destroyed somehow. I'd just start collecting things all over again. The disjointedness of my room is also interesting to me. Right now I have a copy of Hamlet sitting next to a T-rex toy in a bikini (it's a long story). Most of my furniture is antique, I think about 100 years old, but it's mixed in with anime posters, colorful books, a TV, DVDs, and my very modern clothes. Not to mention disgusting green carpet. BLECH. I don't know if the inconsistency is an INTP thing or what.

grrreg: I would have been SO mad if someone had come in and rearranged my stuff. My mother loves to do this in the kitchen. Drives my dad and me absolutely crazy.

 

[Agent Intellect]

i'm a very messy person. i have a big shelf on one side of my room thats just FULL of things (books, CD's, movies, spare change, my chess board etc) my hamper is just the corner of my room, and the side of my computer desk is my beer bottle depository. it really clashes with my roomates (my brother) who's a neat freak. he has his movies organized in alphabetical order and everything! thankfully we don't sleep in the same room anymore (like we did when we lived at home) lol. that always led to him "tidying up" my side of the room and in essence losing all my shit so i couldn't find it.

 

[grettiron]

i wouldn't consider myself messy, but looking at my desk right now... well there's a lot of stuff on it, and i can see why someone would think it's messy. but everything is in a general location for a reason! example, vitamins and such just to the right of the monitor (so i never forget to take them), usually a glass of water or a plate of food center to left, anything that might be important within easy arms reach... generally the less frequently used it is, the farther back and to the left an object is. hah, it's kind of amusing to look at it that way, but that's the order behind the disorder

my folks were horrible packrats and i detested that growing up, so i am very liberal about throwing things away. i don't have too much stuff to clutter up my room, so if i want to straighten things up for company i'll just pick up clothes and take care of dishes generally.

it's interesting that you have so many wall decorations and nick-knacks Psycho Psocko. my walls are barren, and always have been. my girl thought it was very strange when we first met, but it's fine to me. of course her walls are covered with picture collages and whatnot. i would never put that kind of shit up unless it was very special... case in point: she made one for me for v-day and i hung it directly above my monitor, so i can easily look at it.

you know i re-read this post and it seems my monitor is the center of my room!! haha man idk what i'd do without the internet

 

[Perseus]

It takes years for the dysfunction to accumulate.

Is your hard disc full of junk?

 

[grettiron]

It takes years for the dysfunction to accumulate.

Is your hard disc full of junk?

not really. i try to keep it fairly organized (i have no basis for comparison though. what is organized?). and i seem to have a drive failure every few years, so maybe that helps.

 

[Fleur]

My desk is pretty clean and not so filled with random stuff, but maybe it`s just because I don`t have so much stuff to make a mess - my things are all over different places of my room, but I still know, where everything is (unlike my younger sister - her desk is total junkyard and she can`t find anything either). My mess basically consist of half-read books and dirty dishes.

 

[Perseus]

not really. i try to keep it fairly organized (i have no basis for comparison though. what is organized?). and i seem to have a drive failure every few years, so maybe that helps.

Once upon a time, it was organised. Now, I just don't care. I wish I could find things though.

 

[Wisp]

Easy. Windows has a search command. Use it.

 

[Ermine]

I like having a bit of clutter. It makes my space more comfortable. Also, I can find things a lot easier when it's not "organized".

 

[Kuu]

Complex Systems. That is what intps are born to work with. Simpler minded people need easier, clearer, more obvious and systematic order. To them, all complex systems seem irrational. To us, it is stupid to waste time on something that we don't need... It's MY room, and MY stuff; they are only meant for ME. Whenever I do work on things meant for other people, I go to great lengths to organize stuff so people can understand it easily (team mates are usually incompetent; roadblocks must be reduced as much as possible)...

So, yeah, my room is full of stuff all over it. I am always fighting my mom. She says I just "toss things on the floor", and I say that "they are not tossed, I put them there". Still once in a while she comes in and "orders" things up despite knowing I will get pissed...

Now, my computer is all neatly organized. A room's entire complexity can be understood with a glance, not so with a computer folder structure. With that said, my desktop usually starts to get cluttered up with constantly used documents, but when it becomes too much I take a minute to organize it (Besides, I have a pretty desktop picture to look at).

Good thing I work/study with other creative types. Our university's architecture workshop's walls, floors and even ceilings are littered with drawings, books, sleeping people, cutting tools, cardboard, cables, bags of chips, paint splatters...... The workshop is also conveniently placed in a remote part of campus (by accident more than design) so that the neat freak bureaucrats rarely come in, and we can come and go at all times and also play very loud music at 3am on any day of the week without anybody getting fussed about it (the guards of campus are borderline totalitarian).

In fact I once read an interesting theory that said that clutter tends to rise when there is not the adequate storage nor the adequate location of said storage for things... for example my dad said last week he wanted to build a library room to store all the books in the house, and I said it was the most stupid thing he could do. Things need to be where you NEED them, not where they look all pretty. Cooking books should be in the kitchen, computing books near the computer, drawing books near the drafting table, general literature near beds and couches, big photography or interestingly inspiring books on coffee tables... not everything in the same place, which will inevitably fail because you will either take things out to where you use them and leave a mess anyway, or never use your books because they are stashed away...

Haha I tend to rant a lot on this subject. As an Architect, the issue of Order vs. Liveliness haunts me... you need to have order, but flexible and dynamic, not sterile...

 

[Agent Intellect]

i always found it strange that messes bothered people so much. i go over to somebodies house and the first thing they often say is "sorry about the mess" and look all worried that their house looks as it does. if they hadn't said anything in the first place, i probably would have barely noticed.

but its funny because my bedroom is so cluttered, then i walk out into the rest of the apartment and everything is always so neat and ordered. is it strange, or even really sloppy of me to not care about a mess? it just seems like such an insignificant thing to worry about, i don't understand why people get themselves so worked up about how things look all the time.

 

[EditorOne]

Now that you mention hard drives: There, I'm sort of organized. Maybe it's simply because there's no choice. I've got entire trees of file folders, plus an unassigned pile of 20 to 50 files at any given moment that will, if they turn out to have ongoing value, eventually find their way into the right folder.

The only problem I have is sometimes forgetting the thinking that went along with creating a particular branch of my own Tree of Knowledge....

(footnote: The search function on my computer appears to be as intimidated by the amount of "stuff" in there as I am. It takes forever and definitely meets the requirement for the "dysfunctional" label. )

 

[Jesin]

Have you tried defragmenting? That should make searching (as well as a lot of other things) at least a little faster.

 

[loveofreason]

In response to the opening question: yes.

From the archives: http://intpforum.com/showthread.php?t=220

But I really like Tekton's observation. Now I have my defense whenever some pesky J criticises my personal chaos. "I's not a mess - it's a complex system! Don't blame me you're too dense to see the logic!"

 

[Perseus]

I have perpetual acrimony with my neighbours who are tidy and I am not. It makes life unpleasant all around, their attitude. They complain to the Council. The Council come around and have a discussion. Then the neighbours send the gang around to threaten me. I am not sure I understand what they are talking about. They are just mean spirited selfish bullies and I can't stand them! If they don't like it, why don't they fuck off back to the city!

It is a perpetual nuisance and I am not only one that suffers from these city plebs.
Defragmentation: what they need is a fragmentation bomb in their fucking heads.

 

[Perseus]

PS; The above is caustic. I go straight from being nice to caustic and leave out the sarcastic bit in between.

 

[loveofreason]

Nature is Complex. Nature is messy. There's lots of life in chaos. Life is chaos.

 

[Perseus]

'I accept chaos. I don't know whether it accepts me.' Bob Dylan said that.

'I rearrange the chaos into different forms.' I said that.

 

[zxc]

fnord!

 

[Taylored]

My desk is pretty scattered. I like to call it organized chaos. To the casual observer it would look like I am just a slob, but I know where everything is. I actually have a system to it as well. Everything is in a certain order. It is just... fluid.

I used to catch a lot of flack from my boss for having a messy desk until one day he pointed out how clean my neighbors desk was, to which I replied. "My desk is messy because I work all day. I do not have the luxury of playing house like some of my fellow unproductive coworkers." That was the last I heard of it.

 

[Waterstiller]

I was probably one of the more unorganized people on the planet. I literally had nothing 'organized'. My desk in elementary school was pretty much just me shoving things in there, and I remember every so-often when I was forced to clean it that I'd need a trashcan all for myself. This pattern continued until about a year ago when I started organizing everything. When I say everything, I mean everything. My room is.. perfect. Highly functional, everything has a place. I organized our pantry and we routinely get compliments from people who visit. My computer? The Start Menu is incredibly organized (download SMOz), bookmarks all have a place, and most can be easily found (though, my music collection needs some work).

I greatly dislike maintenance apart from my actual person, so I like to set up a system that will pretty much run itself. I have actually come to enjoy the organizing process, and it's a valuable skill to learn.

I attribute the majority of my motivation to be organized and keep my living space clean to BBC's "How Clean is Your House?" It's like "Scared Straight" for INTP's.

YouTube- How Clean Is Your House - Worst Flat Ever 1

 

[Gorgrim]

I saw that show a couple times, I think it's sort of hilarious actually... I like cleaning because I have the chance to make it into a system.

One that I try to improve as I go by. My desk is full of stuff, but it's all important or invisible. I find it quite nice actually. but if it get's in the way, Im quick to organise again. By nature i think im quite bad at keeping clean and everything, But cleaning helps me! when i feel like nothing's working. it builds from beeing decently neat, - to somewhat messy gradually when I have no worries and life is going by =)

 

[*Stabbity*]

Being married only so much of my entropic nature can be accepted before so long until INFJ comes by and either yells or stammers on and cleans while I debate the reason it needed cleaning in the first place. I can hardly blame her. She comes from a family that is predominantly Virgo and has a penchant for being OCD. Her parents home is so clean you could probably eat off the floors in the bathrooms. They use hand sanitizer like it was water. I once had a debate with her father over their families contant sickeness. It went badly, but I got my point across. "By being overly scared of bacteria and diease you have lowered your immune systems ability to fight infection. You are in essence creating super bugs. You cant expect to get better if you can fight infection!"

In any case, I tend to go off on a tagent. Sorry. I am not orderly or stuctured with my belongings, but I can recite with perfect clarity where I left my change or the remote control. I tend to keep my desk somewhat more organized than anything else in my world for the fact that I spend oh so much time in front of it.

My hard drive(s) is pretty structured. I have individual partitions for multimedia, personal documentation, and "crap". I have no desktop icons nor will I ever need to defrag.

I use Arch Linux with the OpenBox window manager. JFS(journalized File System) doesnt require a defrag. Only a fsck(File System Check) every now and then. It takes about a minute for each partition.

I use Beagle for indexing for quick access to whatever file I need.

For one to be INTP one has to embrace entropy as a friend.

 

[kellimaier]

Thrive...no...but I always seem to make one either way.

I lose things.

My "put it all away...or throw it away" Mom...loses my stuff for me too.
She throws away stuff like prize winning art work...wtf?
Can clutter bother someone that badly?

She tried to say I was like Ebay Mom...not even close...nothing blocks my doorways. i actually use what I buy, and I don't have any boxes of cereal from the 70's laying around....I do not need to create a path in my home....no stacks of boxes reaching to the ceiling.

I am a compulsive knitter and I think she was trying to say my wool stash was getting too big.

 

[Agent Intellect]

the best way i have for trying to stay "neat" is by having very few posessions. unfortunately, it still doesn't work. my room is an "organized sty" as i call it, because i at least know where to find what i need. who needs a chest of drawers when there is a "clean pile" and a "dirty pile" on the floor for laundry?

 

[Reverse Transcriptase]

My dad had a friend who kept all of his possessions in a backpack.

That way, if this friend ever wanted to just leave, then he could just walk out the door with his backpack. He had a book or two, a change of clothes, a few toiletries, and a few momentos. I can understand what is attractive about that...

but I love my stuff. I love that I have all my stuff around, ready for my different needs. I have books that will satisfy a large variety of my reading urges.

I made my own desk this year, and I intentionally made it large. It's seven feet long and 2.5 feet deep. It's also pretty low, which makes computer work and writing more comfortable. I love having so much space to spread out all my things... and that was the main point for making it large.

 

[Vrecknidj]

My wife and I are both P types (she's an INFP), our younger son is an INTP, and our older son is an INTJ who has basically given in to the dark side. It's not that I thrive in a mess, it's that I'm constitutionally required to exist in one.

Dave

 

[anemian]

What mess? I don't see a mess, I see ordered chaos.

 

[Decaf]

I read this on a description of INTPs before and I wholeheartedly agree. I don't see the mess around me because I'm not currently preoccupied with it. Anything that isn't the focus of my attention is just wherever, unless it keeps me from getting from the front door to the computer or the bathroom.

 

[Agent Intellect]

i was just noticing in the past few days how much stuff is on the shelf in my room that i, in a way, knew was there, but never really paid any attention to. once i look at it and try to notice whats present, i'm suddenly like "oh yeah, there it is" even though i never technically forgot it was there, i just never thought about it.

 

[jase20uwo]

Organization from my prespective has no position in life. My entire office is a huge mess. I owned a computer company, had many employees; and the common problem was, "look at the pile you leave." Much alike that messy guy from Charlie brown; I had a "dust cloud" follow me around. In fact, I think I work better in a messy area. It's simply easier to "let things fall where they may, rather then return them to proper order."

I believe the second law (maybe first law of Thermodymanics) would state that things go from Order to Chaos. Presently, my desktop has hundreds of Icons on it. I don't use any of them, but they are there. The coffee table I'm sitting on has a pile of random books. I'm a musician, and my piano is covered with books. On the odd side, when I am stressed or bored, I find the time to "obsessively" clean, organize, and put things in "order" but then, I consider I'm upset I cannot organize things as "perfectly" as other people.

 

[Perseus]

I remember going to a Book Launch at a Publishers, with French red wine and a London buffet. A big difference between London and the provinces is the quality of the catering.

Everything was clean and tidy until somebody leant against one of the cupboards and all the junk (=important documents) fell out.

 

[Artifice Orisit]

What mess? I don't see a mess, I see ordered chaos.

My room is chaos theory in action; I'm hoping that the mass of random interactions will result in a sentient construct of action-reaction based principals

It's entirely theoretically possible.

 

[Tiger]

And didn't Einstein (another INTP) say the state of the desk represents the mind? ?

yeah the intp mind.

as to your question am i messy?
BOY-HOWDY!

 

[grammyofdavid]

The messy is because of the p at the end of your type anfd mine as well! P stands for open ended thinking----we might need that paper in a minute--etc.

 

[Anling]

I always thought I was messy until I went to college and lived with other people. Naturally I don't care or notice mess unless it gets in the way. On the other hand I grew up with white glove clean checks from my neat freak dad. So I guess I have had the need for order ground into me. Sometimes it would take several checks before we were allowed to leave our rooms. He would check the top of the door for dust! We couldn't even reach the top of the door! *twitch, twitch*

(Remembering my childhood makes me think no one in my family should be allowed to breed.)

So I guess I would say that my ordered chaos is probably a little more ordered than the norm around here, but it will never pass muster at a clean check.

 

[keyme]

Messy? Oh yes.
I don't tend to notice mess most of the time, and I guess this is the root cause of the "problem".
I do keep one thing obsessively neat and aesthetic at all times. My desktop. I don't really know why.
Othewise, my possetions are chaos. For example, I have a closet stuffed (literally stuffed) with computer/electronic parts. My desk always has all the things I currently care about on it. All of them. Books, letters, paperwork, and even a (temporarily toasted) high voltage generator.
And all in all, I wouldn't notice that something is wrong unless I contiously compared it with the "ideal" of order.

 

[Calamedes]

my apartment was a disaster until about 18 hours ago... when I cleaned it.

I love my "ordered chaos" (thanks, anemian. i'm stealing that now), but once I feel the need to clean, EVERYTHING gets cleaned. all 10 loads of laundry, sweep + mop floor, cobwebs out of corners, scrub table and closet (yes, even my closet :P)..

everything.

anybody else do that?

 

[Calamedes]

my apartment was a disaster until about 18 hours ago... when I cleaned it :P

though I enjoyed my "ordered chaos", sometimes I get the urge to clean- at which point it gets extreme. For about 4 hours, I scrubbed down my entire apartment

~swept and mopped every inch of floor (it's all tile :P)
~all 10 loads of laundry
~bathroom/ toilet spotless + replaced the air fresheners
~scrubbed all tables and chairs
~swept the walls to get cobwebs out of corners & ceiling
~I even cleaned out my closet.

anybody else get obsessive when cleaning?

 

[Ermine]

Yeah. Whenever I decide to clean/reorganize something, I turn into a neat freak for a while. However, I'm also just as content tossing the mess out of the way.

 

[figaro_black]

I don't think I've laughed this much in quite some while over what's posted in a forum.

I've battled the mess in my room for years (that is, when the creative chaos I usually live in becomes dysfunctional and I can spend an afternoon looking for that one white paper in piles of white paper). I've invested in proper Billy bookcases, in boxes with lids and etiquettes, in chest of drawers, bags for dirty laundry, hooks and shelves, rubber bands, tables with storage facilities underneath, and even a strategic waste paper basket system. Nothing works. I might feel ever so pleased with myself for having tamed my ever growing piles of white A4 papers, for having actually folded my cloths and put them into their place and for even having sorted my books in alphabetic order and having finally divided the literary works from the scholarly ones. Every time I think: well, now I will not have the problem of finding the relevant A4 paper again because it will be in that box there, or on that table here where I keep everything I actually use. Sometimes a week will go by, sometimes more, sometimes less but sooner or later the order starts to crumble. I do not know why, but one morning I will wake and discover that my room is a dysfunctional mess again without me ever having noticed the transformation. Though, I guess I should be warned that I'm heading in that direction again when my mother remarks that I need to clean...

 

[Ermine]

Are there a lot of IKEAs in Sweden?

 

[Jesin]

http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/light/organization.php

I sort of liked that essay.

 

[Ogion]

Oh hey, just realized i didn't post in this thread yet. Well, yeah, not that i had something to seriously add besides agreement with everyonoe messy Though of course it only seems to others to be messy, it has specific rules. Like one of the profiles said: when something is not used it will ssimply lay around and be totally ignored, until needed or being in the way. So true...

Ogion

 

[figaro_black]

That article is really great. Though at least the writer seems to be able to put things away in a neat order. I don't even always manage that despite the best of intentions. Take my computer for example. I have this system with neatly named folders made, but I don't use it. Everything goes into one folder on my desktop that I only remove the unwanted pieces from whenever I get frustrated with not finding anything in it.

And no, there are not a lot of IKEAs in Sweden. Not in comparison to many an other country. After all, there are only so many customers living here.