Chaos frees us from familiar patterns

It's nice when everything is in its place, documents have been sorted away and nothing is lying around. After all, order is half the battle and we often feel uncomfortable in a messy environment, associating it with stress and a poorer quality of life. Yet current research shows that a little chaos also has positive sides. Anyone looking for a creative solution to a problem at work or at home, for example, often reaches their goal more quickly in a messy environment: chaos inspires us and stimulates our brain to break away from familiar patterns, to combine and think in completely new ways.

Tidiness saves time in everyday life

A spotlessly tidy desk, on the other hand, is useful for working through routine tasks. It is often said that tidiness saves time and makes life easier. However, people tend to forget that it also takes a lot of time and effort to create and maintain this order. US psychologists found in studies that many of their participants worked even more efficiently when they simply stacked things and put the newest items on top than when they sorted things according to strict categories. They were also able to access important documents that they needed more quickly - or emails that they did not sort but instead displayed using the computer's search function.

Sometimes you have to improvise

A little disorder in our lives has another advantage: it forces us to be more attentive and mindful. If everything doesn't always run in an orderly fashion and according to fixed rules, but instead sometimes stumbling blocks and obstacles line our path, we have to be vigilant and sometimes improvise - a skill that is often very useful in everyday life. Incidentally, this is also why experts advise that it is better to clear up a big mess all at once than to try to avoid it in the first place. Or as Kurt Tucholsky once put it: