Recently, thanks to multiple studies, the old consensus that “a tidy desk equals a tidy mind” has been shouldered aside by its opposite. Except I’ve realised, over the last few years, that this slob versus neatnik dichotomy – subject of a thousand slanging matches between spouses – is an oversimplification. I’m a tidy person, but decidedly average when it comes to cleanliness; whereas my partner values cleanliness enormously, while being somewhat untidy. Because the curious truth about the neat versus tidy split, I’ve found, is that it causes almost no tension at all. Partly, that’s because they’re complementary traits: one person does most of the tidying, the other most of the cleaning.

Source: The Guardian August 25, 2017 13:52 UTC