I was chatting with my mum the other day and I was able to put into words something which has been bothering me for decades and I wondered if anyone else is like me.
I tend to be naturally quite messy/chaotic. Could be to do with ADHD (I am diagnosed) or could be learned or could be personality. Both I have to make a real effort to even think about cleaning up but also I'm not particularly bothered by ambient mess and clutter.
Anyway, I have a thing that I tend to do which is something like - if the kitchen counter is dirty, and I want to prepare food now and don't have time to clean, I will take a clean chopping board and place that on the dirty counter to be a clean "island" on which I can prepare food without it coming into contact with the counter. I have been known to clean one hob in order to put a pan on that one hob while leaving the rest with stuff (pans as well as spilled food) on it - less likely to do that these days, more because I think it gets in the way and is hazardous, plus it doesn't really take any more time to wipe down the whole hob at once. I will be mentally keeping track of the "clean" and "dirty" areas and avoid e.g. contaminating the clean area by placing a utensil that has touched raw meat on there - I would use a separate saucer or something to avoid this touching the dirty counter too.
If I want to write on a piece of paper or do some drawing, I assume that surfaces (floor, table, etc) might have dropped/spilled food and therefore might dirty the paper, so I would either wipe clean the immediate area that I wanted to work in or I would use something like a book to lean on or place newspaper down first, both to protect the surface from my activities but also to protect my activities from the surface.
In general I am very careful where I place things in order to avoid them being damaged or contaminated by the environment which I assume might not be that clean, but also, I'm mostly aware of the contents of the mess and would avoid putting new items that might contaminate e.g. if I have McDonald's wrappers, I would try to keep them all together and away from a stack of paper such as paperwork which needs filing, which would get grease marks on them.
OTOH I have noticed that many people, including my DH, tend to go ahead and use the whole of an area without particularly noticing if it is clean or dirty or has important protection-worthy items in it, and by doing this, can contaminate items e.g. cardboard jigsaw pieces get grease stains on them or a wet cloth used to wipe something gets left in a position where it contacts absorbent items and causes damage to them. Either this, OR, if he wants to (e.g. cook) he simply won't do it in a messy area, he will stop and clean the whole kitchen first and only then start cooking, even if this makes it much later, or he will announce that it's impossible to cook and come up with some other solution e.g. we go out for fast food. If he is forced to operate in the messy environment it makes him very stressed and flustered.
And for another example, I used to constantly have a very messy bedroom, but I would carefully choose a spot for my foot in order to walk across the room without damaging things which are on the floor. (Like a cat does). I remember being frustrated that my younger sister, and also DH, would just plough across the room standing on whatever is in the way, like a dog does. I used to put this down to a male/female difference (DSis adopted my method as she got older) but I wonder if it's not more of a difference in that I/my family expect to operate in chaotic/messy environments and it's sort of a workaround for me (us), whereas probably most people expect their environment to be basically clean and functional, and if they cannot or will not clean it first then they simply continue to operate as though it was clean and functional. I grew up in an all-female home and I often incorrectly attributed things to being female vs male when it was actually my family vs the world.
Anyway I am now wondering if I am a complete and total weirdo or if anyone else does this? I think in some ways it makes me quite adaptable as I can operate in (what seems to me) a safe and effective way even in a chaotic environment, but I have realised that other people do not see it this way, it is seen as quite dysfunctional.