How to tame the monster
Whether you are going for the sterile glass desktop, or simply want to bring a little more order to the chaos of your desktop, there are a few fundamental guidelines:
- Really want to improve.
I don't recommend the really severe approach that some do. Unfortunately that leaves excuses to be too easy on yourself. This attempt to make your desk less cluttered and more efficient depends on you making a serious effort. - Keep, toss, or move.
Find three containers. Label the smallest "keep". Label the largest "toss". Have another container labeled "move". The really vital stuff will go into your keep container to be sorted later. Anything that you want to take home or give away goes into the move container. Everything else goes into the toss container. (Ideally your toss container will be two parts. One part will be trash to be disposed of. The other will be paper products, which can be recycled.) - Start with the oldest.
You can tell by looking at them which pile is the oldest. Usually it is farthest from your chair. It will be the easiest to throw away items from this pile. - Evaluate each piece only once
Look at each item in the pile. Decide which container it will go into. You can't set it back on your desk for later, you have to decide now. Put everything into one of the three containers. There is no other option. - Ask yourself this...
The first question is "do I have this somewhere else, or can I get it from someone?" If you have a copy in email, or in a report, or on the desk of the person who prepared the market analysis, etc., you don't need to keep a copy. Toss it. Then ask "why do I need this?" If the answer is a) to take action on it, b) to do something with it when I get more information from someone, or c) to refer to as I do other work, put it into the keep pile. (After you get rid of the clutter you will re-sort your keep pile by those three categories, so feel free to separate them now. It will save time later.) If your answer was anything else, toss that item. - Be ruthless. Be brave.
As you progress through each pile, getting closer and close to the things that just arrived, be ruthless in your decisions. Take no prisoners. If you really don't need it, toss it. And be brave. Don't hang on to something just because someone might ask you something about it someday. Don't build a fortress of paper to protect yourself.
Manage This Issue
Your desktop doesn't have to be sterile and completely devoid of paper, although it can be if that helps. Your goal is to organize your desktop so that it maximizes your efficiency. If that means a few more piles on your desk than the person next door, that is okay - provided everything you kept helps you meet your goal of increased efficiency.
Next we will look at how to keep your desktop orderly, now that you have gone to the trouble of getting it that way.
Additional Internet resources
National Association of Professional Organizers
Order from Chaos - organizing for the disorganized, by the disorganized
Happiness Is a Clean Desk
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If you have any questions or comments about this article, or if there is an issue you would like us to address, please post them on our Management Forum to share with the entire group.
