Right vs. Left
"When heavily laden she..had a tendency to list, and righted herself with difficulty."
The Intention:
Some time ago, I decided to reorganize the physical set-up of my studio space to prioritize creativity and limit the intrusion of what I call “desk work.” I set up four work stations: first, my creative desk: a dark walnut surface where I sit to write, draw, journal, carve, and paint. Next to this is the paperwork desk -- a smaller surface dedicated to paying bills, tracking down paperwork issues, filing papers. A third surface is a workbench, where I can do things standing up — just the right height for comfortably sketching patterns, cutting fabric, measuring, gluing and lettering. Last but not least, the computer station holds laptop, keyboard, trackpad, and manuscript stand.
According to the new plan, the surface of each desk would be maintained in accordance with its function. The creative desk would be bare of everything but inspirational amulets, pens & pencils, and the most recent iteration of current work in progress — ready and waiting for the next step. The workbench would be kept clear most of the time, in readiness for the next large project. Lastly, the neatly functional business desk would house checkbooks, postage stamps & address labels, unopened mail, and pending bills. I was determined to spend only one day per week at this desk, just enough to keep up with the unpleasant but necessary tasks of daily existence.
The final step in preparing to maintain this brilliant separation of house-keeping and creative work was to review and redo my list-making methods. I fully admit to being obsessed with to-do lists. I have way too many different pads on which to make lists — each one bought in a moment of weakness when it promised to solve all my managerial problems. How could I resist a pad lined with rainbow watercolor, and the inviting word “today” at the top?
I don’t intend to reveal too many trade secrets — suffice it to say that the writing implement used in making lists is also of key importance. The required pencil has soft lead, a sharp point, and a good eraser. A respectable list also requires legibility, an inviting appearance on the page, the correct grouping of tasks, and so on. Certain items demand capitalization, others lower case. Lists that don’t look right have to be torn up and written over again …
The making of lists easily gets out of hand and leads me into a state I call ‘listing’ — as in “I can’t believe I just wasted a whole hour ‘LISTING.’ (This nautical term somehow feels quite appropriate. When said of a ship, ‘to list’ means ‘To careen, heel, or incline to one side.’ Just how I feel when deskwork takes over my mindspace!)
The Reality:
Months later, as I look around the reorganized room, here’s what I see:
The creative desk, in addition to my journal and a spiral-bound notebook of ideas, also holds my open monthly calendar planner, a clipboard with large pad, various smaller pads, sticky notes, and loose pieces of paper hosting lists of all sorts, and three extra-pressing overdue bills. Some ‘urgent’ items are repeated on more than one list, particularly the worn-out phrase "answer all emails." None of the lists are even vaguely related to creative endeavors, and thus clearly should be over on the business desk, which is now almost completely buried under three filing trays of current creative projects-in-progress, a box of pending bills, checkbooks, a pair of binoculars, some cat treats, a heap of salvageable colored tissue paper, and a box of hand-printed cards. One corner has just barely enough room left to set down a coffee cup.
The workbench is covered by 5 different stacks of papers to be followed up on or filed — minimally organized, at least, into topics. (One pile is labelled “Daunting tasks” and another “Stuff I never want to see again.” An assortment of ribbon spools, popsicle sticks, rulers, glue sticks, stapler, scissors, paper clips, and colored pencils lines the perimeter.
The computer station, besides stand, trackpad, and manuscript holder, has a pile of random items along one edge, that are meant to be returned to the kitchen next time I pass by — also, inevitably, there are three more pads of lists.
Apparently now there is one additional work surface — because on the floor I see two more cardboard trays full of papers, one labelled “TO BE FILED!!” in red, and the other “SHRED.” I assure you that this is temporary.
The motive behind this reorganization was a wish to maximize creative output, and minimize the interruptions of daily life that drive imagination away. I dreamed of being welcomed each morning by an uncluttered, inviting writing surface: an open book, a blank page, each day a new beginning — leaving me free to develop new ideas without environmental distractions to derail the process. Yet clearly the physical space seems to be working against this goal — crowding out the creative impulse. Is it the age-old struggle between the two halves of the brain?
The left and right sides of the brain are connected by a bundle of nerve fibers, the corpus callosum (Latin for ‘tough body’). In a healthy brain, the two sides communicate with one another. [Nonetheless, if a person’s brain sustains an injury that separates the two hemispheres, they can still function relatively normally.]
In the late 1950’s, scientist Roger W. Sperry began to perform split-brain experiments which eventually revealed that the two hemispheres of the brain function differently. In 1981 he received a Nobel Prize for this research, which was rather gruesome in some respects. It involved studying both animal subjects and human volunteers in whose brains the corpus callosum was severed, rendering the two sides of the brain unable to communicate with one another. Sperry’s findings gave rise to the popular notion that people’s personalities are determined by which side of their brain is ‘dominant.’ According to this way of thinking, if you’re more ‘left-brained’ you are probably fact-oriented, good at math, and a logical thinker — whereas if you’re ‘right-brained’ you tend to be more creative, artistic, and intuitive. If you’re simply ‘hare-brained’ — well, Perry did not weigh in on that.
The idea that one half of the brain is the creative half and the other the analytical half became very widespread. It provided the basis for the theory that a person’s abilities and personality are determined by which side dominates within their particular brain. But in 2013 when researchers at the University of Utah did brain scans of more than 1,000 people, looking at 7,000 different regions in each person’s brain, they found that regardless of personality types or individual preferences, activity on both sides of the brain is similar — all participants used both sides of their brains equally. Granted, some people are more creative, while others are more analytical. But it’s not because one side of their brain is stronger or used more than the other. What science has learned is that although the two halves of the brain specialize in different functions, they don't act independently of one another. Rather, the two halves work together all the time, sharing information over the corpus callosum network to pool their specialties.
… Both sides of the brain have to work together in order to fully understand things like sounds, movement and communication… For example, one’s ability to respond to or create music has frequently been attributed to the right side of the brain. However, processing musical elements such as melody, pitch and tempo engages the left brain, meaning both sides must work together to process the various components of music. The same can be said for enjoying a TV show or a book— the right side is engaged with the nuance of tone, humor and intuition, while the left side is processing the meaning of words and the logistics of scenarios. [https://neulinehealth.com/the-left-brain-vs-right-brain-theory/]
Then why is the creative spirit so easily silenced when faced with what I call the executive side’s assertiveness? It may politely protest the interruption, using words like “please” and “sorry,” mustering a brave “I know there are important calls to make/bills to pay/things to do … but please, give me a moment to jot this idea down before it vanishes, so I can come back to it at a better time …”
But the executive voice is brash — it moves in and overrides the creative, raising the spectre of a long list of overdue bills, unanswered legal, financial, or logistical questions, emails in need of response. “C’mon, hop to it or dinner’s gonna burn, mice will rule the house, you’ll owe huge late fees, and so-and-so will write you off forever!”
The consequences of putting off the creative impulse aren’t physically visible — unease, frustration, opportunity lost, and an overwhelming sense of being taken over by endless tasks, postponing what really matters.
So … what’s the solution? I don’t think lists and organization are. The more lists I make, the more overwhelmed I feel, the more time I spend staring at and revamping those lists, glazing over all the while.
The lists are dictated by the very adversary my creative mind is struggling with. The direction I’m aiming for is motion over standstill, heart over head, intuition over logic. On an experimental basis, this means reducing the detail included on lists, limiting how often I check them, redo them, pay attention to them.
Let the dreams speak up, loudly! And if the dinner burns, so be it.
to capture & to hold
the poet sits
in sun-warmed grass
intently scribbling to take
elusive complexities by surprise
a child chases butterflies nearby
snatching air with quick fingers
surprised when she opens them
to find her hand empty
Love the double meaning of "List."
My office used to look like what you describe. Then a friendly organizer helped me to envision my ideal workspace (which you have already done). After that we emptied one file cabinet drawer. (You'll see why below.)
I have found that the KEY is to clean up my work area -- EVERY SURFACE -- BEFORE I leave it for the day. I need to build in 5 minutes to do this. In that empty file cabinet drawer, I put (inside a manila folder) the projects I am working on, and close it.
The next day when I arrive in my office/art room, the desk and all surfaces are CLEAR and therefore my head is clear too! I feel at peace when I walk in, as opposed to before when the moment I walked in and saw all the piles, I was filled with dread.
I love this glimpse into your spaces and your brain! 😁 It’s very illuminating and “relatable.”