A clutter-free desk can help you have a clutter-free mind. Follow these steps to see for yourself:
- Go through everything sitting atop your desk, disposing of anything you don’t need. If your desk is cluttered with many pens, notepads, etc., whittle them down to a reasonable number. Are paper piles dotting your desk? You can fix that easily enough: refer to my earlier post, “Drowning in Paper.” Are there too many knick-knacks taking up valuable space and lending a sense of chaos? You know what to do…
- Now go through your desk’s drawers, disposing of anything you don’t need. If you’re like most people, you haven’t done this in ages—you’ll be surprised at how much you get rid of.
- Next, examine what remains from atop your desk and the desk’s drawers. Divide these items into two categories: things you use frequently, and things you don’t. Find a place away from your desk for the latter category (for instance, you could store company letterhead, the telephone book, or the Policy manual on a nearby shelf). Find a logical home in or on your desk for everything else. Devote one pull-out drawer to supplies: pens, a ruler, a stapler, sticky notes, paper clips, etc. (you might consider buying a drawer organizer so that each of these items has its own “home”).
- Do you use a paper calendar? If so, take it off your desk. Tack it to the wall or a bulletin board, where you can see it instantly and it won’t get buried under paperwork during a busy day.
- Give some thought to your inbox. Way too often inboxes become a place to stick paper we don’t know what to do with. “I’ll look at this tomorrow,” we might say, but then we forget about it. But if carefully used, an inbox can be a useful mechanism to keep you organized. A multi-level inbox is okay, but don’t have more than three levels. Think about the incoming material you get each day, and divide it into no more than three categories—let’s say: (A) Important: Needs to be taken care of today; (B) Ongoing: Info related to current projects you’re working on; and (C) To Be Filed: Material you don’t need at the moment but which may be important in the future. Or maybe you’ll just have one inbox and make a vow to completely empty it daily before you go home.
- At the end of each day, straighten your desk, putting everything back in place.
It is interesting