Thoughts: School, organisation, and ADHD

Where creativity meets order, something strange happens. As we go through life each of us finds their own path.

Today, I wanted to talk about the connection between creativity and messiness, and celebrate diversity in our various organisational approaches.

When I turned 15, I had to pick a High School. Driven by a passion for cooking, I enrolled in the Hotel & Catering School. Little did I know that culinary coursework held a dual nature:

• The logical and systematic side: which demanded orderly work, meticulous avoidance of mess, and precise ingredient sorting.
• The creative side: that invoked memories and emotions, encouraging the creation of new shapes and colors through food.

I loved both aspects, but I must confess, the logical side always came more naturally to me. Tidiness and a systematic approach had long been my forte.

I started noticing that some of my classmates were different, and that was ok.

After school, I went to uni; I attended the University of West London, renowned for Film, Media, and Design.

While my friends went into photography, filmography, or music production, I chose Advertising with Marketing – a choice that was, admittedly, among the least creative within my circle. I excelled in Marketing, earning my highest marks there.

University life was synonymous with house parties and frequent visits to each other’s homes for study sessions.

It was during these visits when I noticed something: the rooms of many of my friends were, by my standards, somewhat “messy”. Mind you, being a very tidy person myself, my benchmark for ‘messy’ might have been a little high.

What became obvious, was that my friends and I had different standards of tidiness, and that was ok.

In short, I noticed that most of my “creative” friends tended to have more cluttered rooms. Some of them were dealing with learning disabilities or challenges related to attention and self-control (such as ADHD), making their rooms even more disorganized.

So I thought: What if creativity had its price? What if, to unlock the doors of creativity, we had to part with the logical and systematic facets of the brain? What if the cost of creativity was a messy room?

And I thought, well, that’s very much OK! Actually, that’s GREAT! 

I guess I would have been ok to be messier but more creative. It’s a fair trade. But I also love how a tidy room makes me feel lighter, calmer, more centered. 

So what about those who struggled to maintain order? How could they keep their homes organised without the tools or inclinations?

Scientifically speaking, individuals with neurodevelopmental disorder often face challenges in organisational skills.

That includes people with attention deficit disorders (here is a an article: Working Memory and Organizational Skills Problems in ADHD, from the National Library of Medicine) and people with dyslexia (separate article Living with Dyslexia, from the British Dyslexia Association).

Then I thought: what do I do when I need something creative? I reflected on my working life and realised that, for example, designing logos was not my one of my strength; in fact, I am quite terrible at it.

But what do I do? I hire external designers, simple. I recall working with a dyslexic designer whose creativity knew no bounds and another designer on the autism spectrum who crafted breathtaking brochures.

My belief crystallized: If your home leans towards messiness, it doesn’t necessarily reflect laziness or a penchant for procrastination. More often, it signifies that your brain aligns with something other than organizing, and that’s perfectly fine.

It’s not a shortcoming; it’s merely a reflection of your unique cognitive patterns. And that’s ok!

I believe that embracing this truth will foster a society where each person’s distinct qualities contribute to a harmonious and beautifully diverse society.