Conscientious

Another Big Five personality trait is conscientiousness.

The modern word conscience comes to us from Latin, where con meant with, and science originated as scire: to know. If you think about a conscientious person as being a person with knowledge, you’re not too far off from the modern meaning.

Conscientious people know what they are supposed to do, and they actually do it most of the time.

If I look inwardly, this trait is the most perplexing for me. On the one hand, I make long-term goals, splitting those targets methodically into shorter plans and then executing them as best I can. If I say I’m going to be somewhere at a certain time, I’m almost certainly going to be there on time or a little early—or I’ll have anxiety.

I’ve written and published every day for a thousand days in a row.

I’ve got very high personal standards for the things that matter to me, and if I say I’m going to do something, there’s a very high probability that I will.

And yet, here is unadulterated proof that I am not always conscientious. Behold, a report card from 6th grade:

A few things are going on here. First, you do tend to grow more conscientious as you get older, especially as you begin to leave puberty behind. I’m sure that I became somewhat less messy as I got older, even if I still tend to have a messy workspace around me at most times.

Also: 6th grade was tough.

For me, conscientiousness is a paradox: my calendar has to be clean, and I need to have a good line of sight into the activities of the day. However, the desk next to me is cluttered right now, and my notebook has a couple loose sheets of paper and a Post-It note next to my coffee mug.

I’ve come to realize that spatial neatness and time organization aren’t really governed by the same internal forces. I know people who are phenomenal with spatial organization, but lose track of time and don’t always follow through on commitments. Similarly, I’m living proof of someone who keeps a very rigid daily, weekly, and monthly schedule and routine, but lives with physical chaos around me.

What about you—are you conscientious? Does it differ when you consider obligations and neatness, or is it all part of the same internal phenomenon for you?