Chaos can feel creative until finding anything becomes work.

There is real creative energy in a certain amount of mess. Ideas sit next to each other, connections happen, nothing is prematurely filed. That advantage holds right up until retrieval becomes the bottleneck, at which point the same disorder is costing more than it produces. The threshold is when you start losing things you need.

Allow the mess where you are generating and impose order where you are retrieving. Notice when searching has become a regular part of your day. That is the signal to clean up.