Embrace Your Creative Clutter
January 30, 2009 
Author 
In 
As I walked into my loft after work, I couldn’t help but notice the ever-growing stack of books on my coffee table in disarray with sticky notes on pages of ideas I had while reading.
My “project songs” folder in my music studio has close to 1,000 projects started, but unfinished. Some are near completed songs, others are just brief snippets of melodies. I never stop myself from starting a new project when an idea strikes.
The drafts section in my blog has nearly 200 potential articles in it – some are brief thoughts, some are links to other blogger’s posts or articles I might like to respond to one day, some are near completed pieces.
When I used to play gigs in college as an artist, I would purposely keep my vinyl collection not organized by genre or artist, but in complete random fashion. I knew every record like the back of my hand (and I have over 1,500 pieces of vinyl) – so I knew what I was getting when I made choices before a gig. But the fact that it was randomly organized ensured an eclectic selection of music for the event I was playing, and guaranteed listeners would get a unique experience. The most interesting mixes are always those that were unplanned.
I love creative clutter, creative chaos, whatever you like to call works-in-progress. Creative clutter is satisfying to make, useful to have, and fun to dig through. The more raw bits I can get out of my mind and into something concrete the better. Even if I never return to it, I find the act itself intrinsically cathartic.
Be unafraid of making creative clutter. Some of those snippets off the cusp of your brain can actually produce the most satisfying and successful results when you do take the time to draw them out into complete thoughts later.
The real world creative clutter gets to be chaotic – but with the digital variety you’re free of space constraints. Storage is dirt cheap, folders are searchable/sortable, and you can manage the digital creative clutter to where it may seem chaotic to someone on the outside, but to you everything is in its place.
Some of the music I’ve created will only be heard by me, and never another living soul. Same with words I have written. Some of it might get merged with another project. Some of it I might never listen to again. Some of it I’ll send off to a close friend to let them see my raw, unfinished thoughts. Some of it I’ll decide I don’t like, and delete. I’ve even posted the unmixed parts of unfinished music to communities of music producers and let others run with it.
I know I’m not the only one with countless unfinished bits – I’ve been in friend’s music studios and seen what colleage’s wordpress dashboards look like. It is simply a natural byproduct of our lifelong creative journey as artists, writers, marketers, bloggers – whatever it is we are putting our souls into.
Two samples of what I’ve done with excess creative clutter:
For blogging - creative clutter can be turned into guest posts. I did that recently with a post I started writing here on Facebook, that had been sitting unfinished for quite awhile. I decided to offer it to Louis Gray to hear what the early adopter/Silicon Valley crowd thought, which gave me new found motivation to finish it. Check it out here. If you’re a blogger and can’t seem to finish something for your own blog, writing it as a guest post could give you that extra motivation necessary to get it done. Guest posting is exciting because you’re reaching a brand new audience, many of whom may never have interacted with your thoughts.
For music - my first artist album is a product of creative clutter. It was as simple as picking 10 or so unfinished tracks, mixing them together as one long progression, and finishing the entire thing with one go, filling in bits that were missing all at once. It came out different than my later albums – definitely less organized or cohesive, but in a satisfying kind of way. If you’re an artist, throw all those unfinished bits together, you’ll be surprised with what you can make out of the many smaller pieces when you mix everything up.
What do you do with your creative clutter?
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Ahmed Naguib replied | Jan 30, 2009 (2 comments)
I tend to do the same, even though I always delete my blog drafts because I feel like I ran out of ideas to get me through that certain post,as always, great post Adam, thanks for sharing your ideas, will try and apply them to my own life, who knows, it might work :) .
Wendy Parker replied | Jan 30, 2009 (1 comment)
Love the embrace of creative clutter. Great thoughts for those of us who are mental pack rats. I’m also one of the tangible variety too. Someday I’d like to get my bookshelf to look like this one!
Anton Evans replied | Jan 30, 2009 (5 comments)
Creative clutter has been a way of life for me, although I don’t see it as clutter. It’s just my way of organizing things. Sometimes it can lead to wonderful mistakes. Maybe it’s just my way of ensuring a creative mistake every once and awhile.
Anyway, I know where everything is!
Eric replied | Jan 30, 2009 (23 comments)
Every project you start makes the next one that much better.
There is a great story around this regarding clay pots and a classroom but I could not seem to find it upon my search.
Tim Jahn replied | Jan 30, 2009 (59 comments)
I always think of it in terms of photography. While you will probably take hundreds of shots and only use the best 2 or 3, you needed to take the hundreds to get there.
It’s fun looking back awhile later at the random stuff you made or thought of or wrote. Creative clutter is one of the best ways to keep the creative juices flowing.
Ed Walker replied | Jan 31, 2009 (8 comments)
I often have my best thoughts and ideas while not actually thinking about them, so I keep a small pad with me at all times. It contains loads of plans, schemes, drawings and other stuff.
I’ll then find time once a month to transfer these to Remember the Milk and start actioning them into little tasks – and tag them up as ideas. I have loads of short tasks down as ideas and I just find time in my workload to spend a bit of time on some of them and start forming them into something more concrete. My work has been really supportive of this as I’ve come up with some useful stuff (and very leftfield) that other staff and managers just aren’t thinking about!
thom singer replied | Jan 31, 2009 (1 comment)
See, I like how you have “Creative Clutter”. I have been calling it disorganization and a sheer over abundance of stuff going on in my life.
I have recently discovered that I have too much going on. I have nearly 1000 emails in the combined 3 email accounts. Much of those are things I don’t really know what to do with. They are not unimportant, but so much less important than the rest of the things I have to do that they just sit.
My answer is I am going to delete all emails older than one month. I figure if it is necessary the sender will contact me.
As for all the other stuff in my life. I am enjoying the creative buzz that I will now hang around my crap.
:)
thom
Adam Singer replied | Jan 31, 2009 (597 comments)
@Ahmed – don’t always delete drafts, you never know when an exceptional idea will form from one of them
@Wendy – yes that is a neat bookshelf – flickr creative commons is great
@Anton – i’m with you, it’s totally a way of life
@Eric – that’s a great statement, i may have to reuse that quote (and reference you, of course!)
@Tim – wonderful analogy, that puts it into good perspective
@Ed – the idea pad is the perfect place for good creative clutter to manifest
@Thom – as long as you are organized, it doesn’t matter if others see you as disorganized
Zen Moments replied | Jul 23, 2009 (1 comment)
Love the idea of throwing all/some of the creative clutter together to see what it turns into – now I know what to do with it!
Thanks for linking to Zen Moments – your encouragement is much appreciated!
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