For some, cleaning up means moving a mess from plain view to another place where it cannot be seen. For others it means putting the mess in order, so the mess stops being a mess and becomes organized material. Either way, the mess goes away.

The same is true for solutions. For some, a solution is something that makes a problematic situation stop feeling problematic. The problem is put away in an answer, and the matter is settled. For others, a solution means clarifying a problem — putting a problem in order so the material becomes intelligible and manageable.

But with both cleaning up and solving a problem, one must have a place to put things. In cleaning up, one needs shelves, drawers, closets, boxes, jars, etc. In finding a solution, one must have concepts that can organize and accommodate the relevant features of the problem.

Where messes and problems persist, it’s often the same culprit: things don’t have a place, and we don’t know what to do with it all. Things get stuffed wherever there’s room until nothing else fits, and things quickly get out of control again.

Despite appearances, he real work is not essentially moving the mess to some other place. It is working out where things should go so they can be accessed, used, put away and kept orderly throughout. But for many people thinking and “getting to work” are two entirely different things. They jump straight to moving stuff around. This is true with organizing physical messes, but it is doubly true for organizing intellectual messes. Thinking about how to think is exponentially more painful than the already onerous task of intellectual reflection. So, most people just use the categories they already know and automatically start stuffing facts into them until they no longer see a problem.

It takes time and willingness to think to really organize and systematize. In most situations there’s little time, many distractions, and the pressing need to maintain appearances. And also, we get overwhelmed by messes, and prefer to avoid them. But it is this anxiety about messes, and desire to hide them that is the seed of sloppiness, both physical and intellectual.