You can read the survey for yourself, but in general, it seems that women and young workers have cleaner desks than men and old workers. Northeasterners have cleaner desks than other regions of the country.
But the following two stats are especially interesting:
- The higher the salary, the messier the person: 66% of Americans making $35,000 or less per year are self-described “neat freaks,” whereas only 11% of those earning above $75,000 claim the same.
- The more educated tend to be messier with only 16% consider themselves to be neat. For those who did not finish college, this number increases to 29%.
The link also has some good advice on how to keep your desk free from clutter.
By the way, here's one of my favorite pictures. It is atheistic philosopher professor Quentin Smith, looking for something on his desk.
You might also enjoy looking at the article "Kings of Chaos" on the six messiest desks at the University of Chicago. Admit it: your clean desk doesn't make you look that smart anymore, does it?
So for all you neat freaks out there. Do you want to earn more money and appear to be an eccentric genius? Then grab that tickler file from your drawer and dump its contents onto your desk. It's okay. And while you're at it, you might even want to spill a little coffee on your copy of David Allen's Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. Doesn't that feel better?
(I get teased so much about being organizationally challenged that I have to give my friends a hard time once in a while!)
