Sometimes You Need to Make a Mess to Clean Up a Mess

This is what I used to conclude at the beginning and end of every school year when I would tackle my classroom closets. In order to make order I first had to make a mess by pulling everything out, and then cull and reorganize as I put everything back, swearing that I wouldn't let the closets get this messy again next school year. But no matter the promises, I could never keep those closets neat. Maybe the key to my closet problem was that I didn’t cull enough, or fully embrace the concept that in the case of my classroom closets, less is more. So when I saw an article in my favorite magazine about how paradoxically our strengths are revealed by making things better by first making them worse, I knew I’d be turning the pages because this would be something to which I could relate. The first thing the author wrote about was how sometimes in sports the underdog inexplicably triumphs and how there might be more to this phenomena than luck or greater resolve on the parts of the players or underdogs. I knew there was a reason I like to root for the underdogs. Next the author mentioned the emerging science of networks which might provide answers for the question of why some systems perform better in disadvantageous conditions, like a team that becomes the underdogs when they lose their star player yet against the odds pulls off a win. Physicists and mathematicians embraced these notions and are coming up with interesting (and by some traditional standards radical) ways to improve transport networks, biologic and metabolic networks, and fight diseases, that go against the odds and prove that what is currently thought to be the best is not always best. One example given dealt with adding more routes to make traffic flow better and found that with traffic having fewer routes was more efficient for traffic flow. In terms of traffic flow less was more and flow improved.

And those closets? I've retired from the classroom so they aren't something I have to deal with anymore, but I still like the idea that less is sometimes more. Maybe I can use that strategy on my closets at home.