Orderliness Leads to Originality

"Be regular and orderly in your life, like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work."

-- Gustav Flaubert

Thank God "cleanliness is next to godliness," not orderliness, because though I'm pretty damn clean, I've got along way to go to be orderly! Orderly and ordinary have always seemed liked synonyms to me. And who wants to be ordinary? But Falubert, along with Feng Shui, Zen, and organizational expert Julia Morgenstern, have made me rethink all that.

While I'm a far cry from arranging the clothes in my closet by color, or alphabetizing my cleaning supplies in tidy, little rows under the sink, I do appreciate the time and energy saved through orderliness and organization. I balance my check book, keep a daily to-do list, have my books shelved in general subject areas, write this blog every morning, and... well, hell, I guess that's about it. An orderly life is still a distant, ghost-like image on the organizational horizon.

Many creative types fear that if their life becomes too mundane their work will suffer. They're afraid that an organized life will be like Prozac -- sure things will be nice and calm, but they won't feel like themselves, they won't feel the lovely and awe-full rush of chaos that both energizes and inspires. If, like me, you've used those excuses for not getting organized, put them aside for a few days and see what getting your ducks in a row can do.

I think I'll spend a good portion of my waking hours this weekend putting my home and office in order. Unless you're already pushing the high end of the anal scale, I invite you to do the same. Let's put old Falubert to the acid test. Let's get bourgeois and orderly in our lives, and see if it frees us to create even more wildly, original work. Let our battle cry be "Regularite Supporte Originalite!"