Messy desk, messy mind?

You’ve seen the plaque “A messy desk means Genius,” and we know the dictum that if you clear the clutter out, your Office Worker with Mountain of Paperworkthinking will be clearer and more precise.  So what’s the truth? If you want to believe one (that’s 1) published study, the findings said that those with a messy desk tended to be more creative. They also tended to produce fresh and new ideas. So there!

On the other side of the coin, those who kept their spaces neat and clean? clean deskThey were more likely to “do the right thing,” like eating a more healthy diet or making a charitable donation. Maybe that’s because they don’t have such a crowd in their head, so they can be a bit more generous to others and to themselves.

Conclusions? If you feel your productivity is down, try cleaning up your desk (like I am doing right now – so I have time to pass along this helpful tip.) Better yet, try stetting one of two new habits: 1) pick one day a week when you clean your desk. Or, 2) take ten minutes each day before you leave the office (home or otherwise) and clean up the desk, leaving it fresh and clear. You’ll find you start each day with an uncluttered mind – and that makes a difference!

PS – It’s good feng shui!

PPS – how you doing? Share your comments by clicking on the title. It will take you to the comments section.

Why Feng Shui gets a bad rap

I had to pass this along – it’s just too crazy. But it certainly explains why some people shy away from Feng Shui. This was recently post  in The Inquirer. I welcome your comments! You can leave one by clicking on the title.

DEAR EMILY,

I live in a townhouse where units are built close to each other. My neighbor, who is an ardent feng shui believer, has been making my life miserable with the things he does to me through his workers.

He accuses me of blocking his good luck with the vegetation I’ve planted in my own garden, such as pepper, lemongrass, orchids and fruit-bearing tomatoes. He had them poisoned with herbicide and spray-painted yellow to bring me “bad luck.” He complains that my garage is directly facing the fire hydrant.

He forbade me to put up Christmas lights on my door and around my plants last time and, when I refused to remove them, he had the wires cut by his driver. He has placed dead bats under my car to put a curse on me. He has also resorted to having my car bumper scratched and sprinkled with red and yellow paint.

How do I know all these? He and his driver constantly talk about their shenanigans in my front yard when they think nobody’s home.

I am tired of it. I need a group prayer to counter him. I don’t know when it will end.

DEE

My goodness! Have you got a bully from hell!

Feng shui is supposedly a kind of Chinese philosophy which harmonizes everyone with the surrounding environment, using architecture in its metaphor of “invisible forces” to bind the universe, earth and humanity together.

Why should bringing beauty and peace to an environment be corrupted by one so ignorant, selfish, malicious and vile like your neighbor?

It is the pea-brains of the world like him whose warped bottom line in practicing feng shui is predicated on how to amass more wealth, regardless of the consequences, that give the practice a black eye. They ferociously go through it, not knowing the fundamentals, or even having the intelligence or understanding of what feng shui really is.

Because of this glaring ignorance, some “believers” would bamboozle anyone along the way, destroy the environment and alienate the people around them.

The best way to drill some sense into your neighbor’s addled mind is to report him to the police, with accompanying photos to back you up. Make him realize that harassing you in his twisted practice of feng shui ends where your security and freedom begin!

Have you checked if this person is not an escapee from the mental hospital?

E-mail the author at emarcelo@inquirer.com.ph or emarcelo629@gmail.com.