>  I thought the list might enjoy this excerpt.  Specially those of
> you with cluttered desks.  It is also appropriate for Histarch
> because it discusses categorizing people by their material
> culture, and suggests that material culture may be a map of what
> is going on in a person's brain.  Cool!
>
> Linda Derry (typing at a very messy desk)
>
> > Subject: Leave my desk alone. It works. (excerpt from "In praise of
> > clutter")
> >
> >
> > "In praise of clutter"
> > Dec 19th 2002
> > excerpts from From The Economist print edition
> >
> > ON THE six square feet next to the computer on which this article is
> > being written, a complex ecology has developed. There are approximately
> > (it is impossible to be precise without disturbing the natural order)
> > 100 assorted print-outs (e-mails, web pages, newspaper articles), 12
> > books, ten academic articles, six pamphlets, five notebooks, three
> > newspapers, two magazines, two faxes, two telephone books, one file
> > containing further faxes and print-outs, six pens, one box of matches,
> > one key (origin unknown) and one handheld organiser. Some of this is
> > being used in the  writing of this article. Some of it will be used in
> > the writing of future articles. Some of  it will never be used at all,
> > but will eventually, when the reason why this   correspondent originally
> > thought it so interesting has faded, be thrown in the bin.
> >
> > But why do people need to spread papers around on their desks? Why don't
> > they just read their paperwork and file it? Alison Kidd, a psychologist,
> > investigated this question while working for Hewlett-Packard
> > Laboratories. Ms Kidd, whose new firm, The Prospectory, helps companies
> > to use technology to develop new ideas, interviewed 12 workers about how
> > they used information, paper and computers.
> >
> >   Her paper, “The Marks are on the Knowledge Worker”, draws a
> > distinction between “knowledge workers” and other categories, such as
> > clerical workers. Clerical workers use information—about, say, customer
> > orders—to aid the smooth working of the company. Knowledge workers use
> > information to change themselves. So, for instance, knowledge workers
> > take notes not in order to store information, but because the process of
> > note-taking helps them to learn. Once taken, notes are rarely reviewed.
> > According to a study of research workers reported in “The Technology of
> > Team Navigation”, a paper by Edwin Hutchins, a psychologist, while 64%
> > kept
> >   their notes for years, 44% hardly ever referred to them.
> >
> > The relationship between workers and their clutter is similar. People
> > spread stuff over their desks not because they are too lazy to file it,
> > but because the paper serves as a physical representation of what is
> > going on in their heads—“a temporary holding pattern for ideas and
> > inputs which they cannot yet categorise or even decide how they might
> > use”, as Ms Kidd puts it. The clutter cannot be filed because it has not
> > been categorised. By the time the worker's ideas have taken form, and
> > the clutter could be categorised, it has served its purpose and can
> > therefore be binned. Filing it is a waste of time.
> >
> >  Why people need a physical map of what is going on in their heads is
> > not clear. Ms Kidd suggests that the brain may just need some help. She
> > speaks of her father, who suffers from frontal-lobe dementia, which
> > affects the ability to interpret what is going on around one. As his
> > brain has deteriorated, “he uses the physical correlate more than ever”,
> > to the point at which his surroundings have become chaotic. So perhaps,
> > as the tidy have always suspected, they are just smarter: they can do
> > more stuff in their heads without outside help than the untidy can.
> >
> > Filers versus pilers
> >
> > Work by Steve Whittaker and Julia Hirschberg of ATT Labs-Research,
> > however, suggests that clutter may actually be quite an efficient
> > organising principle. In “The Character, Value and Management of
> > Personal Paper Archives”, they examine the distinction that MIT's Tom
> > Malone draws between “filers” and “pilers”. When filers receive
> > paperwork, they put it away. When pilers get it, they leave it on the
> > desk—not randomly, but in concentric circles. There is a “hot” area, of
> > stuff that the worker is dealing with right now. There is a “warm” area,
> > of stuff that needs to be got through in the next few days: it may be
> > there, in part, as a prompt. And there is a “cold” area, at the edges of
> > the desk, of stuff which could just as well be in an archive (or, often,
> > the bin).
> >
> >  According to Mr Whittaker and Ms Hirschberg, the assumption that filers
> > can find stuff more quickly is wrong. Filers, they say, “are less likely
> > to access a given piece of data, and more likely to acquire extraneous
> > data...In moderation, piling has the benefits of providing somewhat
> > ready access to materials as well as reminding about tasks currently in
> > progress.” Filers have two problems finding stuff: they tend to file too
> > much, because they have put so much effort into building a filing
> > system, and they often find it hard to remember how they categorised
> > things.