Panic erupted in the newsroom this week.
Was it word that the nation's Deputy Prime Minister was a Kiwi? No.
![Journalists mostly feel comfortable with messy desks.](http://web.archive.org./web/20180419022117im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/g/p/b/a/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gxzmzi.png/1503288903508.jpg)
Was it the sight of Pauline Hanson sitting burqa-clad in Parliament? No.
The source of this week's ripple of anxiety was an all staff email titled "Newsroom clean up". This email disclosed that one staff member has been assigned the dedicated task of "Cleaning & Tidying" our workspace. "No doubt she will be talking with you over the next few days."
Journalists are infamous for their messy desks. Management's insistence on hot-desking – the practice of daily decamping from one's desk and losing, over the course of the year, approximately an entire stationery cabinet worth of biros – has smartened us up somewhat from the newsroom I joined a dozen years ago.
Back then, to enter the newsroom was to enter the trenches; but instead of sandbags, picture musty stacks of Fin Reviews and manila folders filled with the results of Freedom of Information searches obscuring the heads of industrious hacks – the only evidence of their presence being the odd eruption of some thunderous conversation, my favourite of which ended with the edict "this ain't talk back radio, mate" and the sound of a phone handset slamming into receiver.
Rest assured, dear readers, our investigations team remains buried – eye-balls deep – in documents and shall be ferociously protected from the oncoming tidying tizzy.
But for the rest of us, the tidy onslaught has begun. And shall I confess? It sends a shiver of delight down my spine.
![A study suggests mess may lead to more calorie intake in times of stress.](http://web.archive.org./web/20180419022117im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/x/z/p/s/8/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gxzmzi.png/1503140101569.jpg)
Over a year ago, I wrote of my enthusiasm for the teachings of Japanese tidying guru Marie Kondo, who advises discarding every possession that does not "spark joy". It lead to me discarding about 20 garbage bags of "stuff".
My de-cluttering journey has since lead me deep into the "minimalist" movement.
![Less cluttered environments may lead people to snack less.](http://web.archive.org./web/20180419022117im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/x/z/p/x/7/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gxzmzi.png/1503140101569.jpg)
If you've not heard of it, you soon will, with the announcement this week of an upcoming Australian tour by the movement's two handsome leaders, Americans Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus.
Another leading light is Joshua Becker, an American father who, with his wife, writes a popular blog called "Becoming Minimalist" in which he recently shared his "7 reasons to minimise your kitchen".
In it, he suggests discarding all duplicates (how many spatulas do you really need?), ridiculous kitchen gadgets (avocado-saver anyone?), moving less frequently used, bulky appliances into other storage and clearing counter tops entirely.
He cited the research of famous food psychologist and behavioural economist Brian Wansink of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab. The 2016 study "Clutter, Chaos and Overconsumption: The role of mind-set in stressful and chaotic food environments" showed people were more susceptible to snack on highly calorific foods in times of stress if they were in a chaotic environment.
Researchers put 101 female undergraduates in two different kitchen-like environments – one tidy and one strewn with pots and dishes. Participants were then given one of three written assignments, one which prompted them to recall a stressful time, one a calm time and one neutral. They were then left alone for 10 minutes to complete a "taste-test" of three bowls of food – cookies, crackers and carrots – in which they were asked to comment on their tastiness. Oh and they were allowed to help themselves to as much as they liked while at it.
In the tidy kitchen environment, there was no difference between participants who had been put into a stressed or non-stressed frame of mind.
In the chaotic kitchen, participants primed to be in an out-of-control mindset ate 103 calories more cookies than the participants primed into a calm state.
"Less cluttered, less distracting, and less chaotic environments may lead people to snack less than they would in a more cluttered and chaotic workplace," the researchers concluded.
Me, I live by the rule of one: one frying pan, one spatula, one cork screw. The avo-saver, the lemon squeezer, the mini garlic grater and the vegetable spiraliser have all left the building.
It's amazing what a knife can do.
My close friends fear they'll visit one day to find me sitting cross-legged on the floor, Steve Jobs style, in an empty room, clasping only a single pencil.
But I'm calmer at home than I can recall. And, dear friends, I've lost 10 kilograms this last year.
As for whether the office mess crackdown will make better journalists of us, the jury's out.
I must concede, a scatter graph plotting "greatness of journalism" on one axis, and "density of dead tree matter on desk", may argue strongly against the proposition that a tidier newsroom will necessarily make us better journalists.
But, at the very least, the evidence suggests we'll be slimmer ones.
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