Neither use nor ornament

A cultural biography of clutter and procrastination

Tracey Potts

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2024
• ISBN:
  9781526173911
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: History

Neither use nor ornament is a book about personal productivity, narrated from the perspective of its obstacles: clutter and procrastination. It offers a challenge to the self-help promise of a clutter-free life, lived in a permanent state of efficiency and flow. The book reveals how contemporary projections of the good, productive life rely on images of failure. Riffing on the aphorism 'less is more' – a dominant refrain in present day productivity advice – it tells stories about streamlining, efficiency and tidiness over a time period of around 100 years.By focusing on the shadows of productivity advice, Neither use nor ornament seeks to unravel the moral narratives that hold individuals to account for their inefficiencies and muddles.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgements
• Prologue
• Introduction
• 1. Theorising the ‘outside’, aka the social
• 2. ‘Less is more’: European modernism and its ‘zoos of agencies’
• 3. ‘More with less’: form, function and American modernism
• 4. ‘The more of less’: clutter, ecology and the new minimalism
• 5. ‘Be more with less’: life hacking, procrastination and everyday rhythm
• Conclusion
• Select bibliography
• Index