The movie ends.

The screen fades to black and the credits roll. I look at Kelsey. She’s asleep. I turn off the tv and the room becomes quiet, and dark.

“Kels,” I whisper. “Kelzz.”

My wife wakes up.

She sits up and feels her round belly. Then she extends her arms at me. ”Help,” she says. I pull her to her feet. We go to bed.

My office is at the top of the stairs. The door is open. The light is pouring into the hallway. I look inside and make a face.

It’s my desk:

There are books and pens, papers. There are cups and mugs and bottles. There’s a plate with crumbs and stained napkins.

Everything is scattered. Everything is out of place. The toll of a day’s work.

Never miss a VeryGoodCopy Micro-Article: SUBSCRIBE

“I tell my students one of the most important things they need to know is when they are best creatively,” said writer Toni Morrison. “They need to ask themselves: What does the ideal room look like? Is there music? Is there chaos outside? Or is there serenity outside? What do I need in order to release my imagination?”

I begin to clean my desk:

I throw things out and put things away until only the essentials remain: a computer and monitor and mouse, a lamp, a coaster, my pictures. Then I clear these things, too. I set them on the floor and wipe the surface with a damp paper towel. Then I put everything in its place, slowly, deliberately. Then I stand back and look.

Something had happened.

The computer knows it, the monitor and mouse know it, the lamp and coasters and pictures know it. My face relaxes. I know it. The space looks different now. It feels different, frictionless.

I learned about this concept in college, when I worked in a restaurant. The kitchen staff did something similar each night: they called it “mis en place” — French for “to gather” or “to put in place.”

“It helps the morning crew hit the ground running,” the chef told me.

Indeed, whatever your discipline, a clean, organized space will probably help you hit the ground running, releasing your imagination, as Morrison puts it.

Doing this always works for me.

Coming into an orderly space in the morning propels me into the creative act.

It’s not unlike the writer who stops her day in the middle of a sentence, so she can begin immediately the next day, attacking her work, creating momentum. Hemingway himself used this mid-sentence trick. It helped him start, which is often the hardest, most resistant part of creative work. So why not give yourself every advantage to start well? To start quickly, with purpose and focus?

Often it’s as simple as creating order and peace the night before, so in the morning you can walk into your “ideal room” — and not one plagued by friction.

“For a person who puts up with needless friction,” said author Ryan Holiday, “will eventually be worn down.”