One of the main points John makes is that your creativity is like a tortoise: It pokes its head out nervously to ensure the environment is safe before it fully emerges. Your creativity won’t show up when you’re nervous or stressed, busy or surrounded by hustle and bustle. It’s a very particular kind of thinking.

This is a quote from article found on Buffer blog, where they are talking about the clean and messy desk, and how messy desk is actually conducive for creative environment. It all depends on the personality type. Mess is consistently distracting me, so from my personal paradigm this doesn’t make sense. But there are people who are inherently messy, maybe it will work for them.
Somehow I feel like this whole piece is trying to justify the messy work space and creates “guilt free” zone for those people who simply can’t get organized.