If you are someone whose work process is often messy (like me), I recommend a book whose author makes the case that disorder can be good. That disorder can often lead to creative and innovative results. And that strict adherence to organization might just be getting in the way of making real progress.
The book is titled Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives and in the first chapter, the author profiles the seemingly chaotic approach to music used by Brian Eno. You may not have heard of Eno but you certainly know some of the people he worked with, including David Bowie.
Eno took to showing up at the studio with a selection of cards he called Oblique Strategies. Each had a different instruction, often a gnomic one. Whenever the studio sessions were running aground, Eno would draw a card at random and relay its strange orders.
— Be the first not to do what has never not been done before
— Emphasize the flaws
— Only a part, not the whole
— Twist the spine
— Look at the order in which you do things
— Change instrument roles
I especially love the idea on the first strategy card he wrote:
The first was “Honor thy error as a hidden intention,” a reminder that sometimes what is achieved by accident may be much more worthy of attention than the original plan.
Eno’s process often baffled and sometimes frustrated the people he was working with, but it also helped them to do some of the best work of their lives.
Very often we as teachers expend a great deal of effort trying to get our students to be organized, believing it will help them produce better work. Maybe we need to help them embrace the messiness of their process and learn to make it work for them instead.
Ok, so you may not come to that conclusion, even after reading this book. But I found it to be a wonderful collection of stories and ideas that show how a messy process can often lead to creative results. It’s also a fun read.
Brain by Elisa Riva is distributed by Pixabay and is used under a Creative Commons license.