If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk? ~Dr. Laurence J. Peter
A writer needs a little clutter going in her head. Got to pull those stories from somewhere. Certainly a swept clean mind is going to be no help at all.
I first wrote about this in 2013, but I read it over and decided you all might enjoy me revisiting the topic and sharing some of the quotes I included then. At the time I had cleaned off my desk. It looked like the picture above. Actually, I find it hard to believe that picture is actually MY desk. There has to be an over stuffed trash can somewhere close by. And look, I think there’s snow on the ground outside. Maybe I was snowbound and that’s why I had time to clean off my desk.
I’m embarrassed to show you a picture of how my desk looks right now. I can see the wooden surface here and there. And yes, there is dust or maybe Christmas cookie crumbs. LOL. But another deadline is calling my name as I work on a new book. The clutter on my desk is safe.
December is always an extra busy month for me with getting ready for Christmas. And this year I had final page edits due for In the Shadow of the River two days before my daughter and her husband were home for Christmas.
As you can imagine, cleaning off my desk was not at the top of my to do list. Even if that desk was more than a little cluttered since I didn’t have time to deal with some of the things I was dumping on it.
A place for everything and everything in its place. That’s great advice, but what happens for someone like me who keeps running out of those places for everything because maybe I’m not good at throwing things away? You know, things like the letter my former editor sent me a few books ago before she retired. Or scraps of paper where I’ve jotted down inspiring quotes. The Valentine card my husband gave me – three years ago. A budding actress granddaughter’s playbill. Various and sundry bulletins from church. Some receipts. Some bills to pay. I do try to keep those bills up on top to be paid in a timely manner.
Perhaps my problem is that housework is not my favorite thing. My husband once told me–while I was not too happily cleaning up the stove after breakfast–that a lot of women loved cleaning. Unfortunately for him, he’s not married to one of those “lot of women.”
I’m more in Erma Bombeck’s camp. My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.
Or I have to confess to being right there with Phyllis Diller about ironing. I’m eighteen years behind in my ironing. There’s no use doing it now, it doesn’t fit anybody I know.
My husband’s shirts have been known to sometimes get dusty waiting for me to iron them and then they had to be washed again and the whole cycle starts over. Like Phyllis said, the shirts probably don’t fit him anymore anyway.
And isn’t this the truth? Housekeeping is like being caught in a revolving door. —Marcelene Cox
But at times when I have actually cleaned off my desk, I have found this quote from A.A. Milne to be too true. One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.
I don’t know about exciting, but I have been known to lose that note I know I made somewhere on my desk. If it is an important note, it generally hides out until I no longer need it.
But tonight I’m going to let Ruby Lou Barnhill have the last word. A bright person can always think of something better to do than housework.
You know like reading a new book or maybe writing one.
But go ahead, you “lot of women” and tell me how much you love cleaning and the household chores you like. LOL! Or maybe the ones you hate.
I hate dusting and obviously cleaning off my desk to do that dusting.