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open space you will create.
    Speaking of creating, minimalist living can have an energizing effect on your creativity. Let's find out how in the next chapter.
     

CHAPTER FOUR
    For Creativity
    “Creativity is subtraction.” — Austin Kleon
    You know the fantasy. You enter a room, and a sense of peaceful, creative energy envelops you. It's a calm place, with blank surfaces for writing, painting, or crafting. There's plenty of light. All the tools you need are available, organized, clean, and in places that make sense to you and to anyone else who needs to access them. Perhaps you got this fantasy from a magazine image or from visiting an artist’s studio or friend’s home. Maybe you thought that wasn't possible for you, with the way things get lost and the way supplies and clutter proliferate lustily. But it's achievable for you. You're going to learn the tools – both expected and unexpected – that will help you turn your clutter zones into spaces where your creativity can flourish, whether you need to be creative for work or play or both. If a more creative life is one of your goals, then decluttering your home, schedule, and thoughts is vital. I believe that we are all creators. We create art, relationships, products, and experiences. We even create our own bodies by what food we put in them and how we train and exercise them. We create our emotions and moods by what thoughts we choose to dwell on. Everyone is creative. Whether we think of ourselves as creative or not, we all create. Sometimes we create consciously, such as when writing a book, and sometimes unconsciously, such as when we engage in a bout of negative thinking, creating a bad mood for ourselves.
    To consciously create requires room in our home, office or studio. Even more than room, we need time in our schedules. And , most importantly, we need to let go of the thoughts that do not serve us. We need to declutter our mental space from the thoughts that hold us back from our highest creative potential.
     
    Making Room
                  I took a survey of creative people to find out about their biggest frustrations regarding clutter in their homes, studios and offices. These are some of their responses on the topic of clutter and creativity:
     
    “[I am frustrated by] having new items purchased and brought into the house without making the effort to first dispense with things we don’t need. Knowing that I should dispose of things responsibly, but not having sufficient priorities to the task to research where and how. I hate throwing things into the landfill that could be sent somewhere more usefully. Clutter is often the outcome of creative effort. My desk is always messiest when I have a lot of work on. The workshop too, but sweeping through and setting things right is essential, or I can't find anything, nor accomplish anything.
    “[Clutter] distracts me and makes me feel like a worthless individual. I can’t get anything done until I clean it up.”
    “[I’m frustrated when] my cleaning lady puts things in the wrong place all the time. My (paper) files aren't in order because we've moved so often and don't have enough file space, and when I need to find something, often I can't. If it's something crucial or time-dependent, I get anxious about it, usually at 2 in the morning or so. Half my books are still in storage and the rest aren't in order, which makes me feel disorganized.
    “[I’m frustrated that clutter] makes me look disorganized even when I'm not. [Yet] it’s sometimes difficult to see everything I have when it's put away, which stops me from making connections. Sometimes one type of clutter (junk mail, etc) gets mixed in with another (yarn, painting things) and then it is hard to find things.
    “Clutter is visual noise that prevents you from seeing clearly. It is visual agitation, or visual perturbation. It takes subconscious effort to ignore clutter, and this effort builds stress. The work environment itself is no