How Do You Use Your Computer Desktop?
Today I continued with Day 2 of decluttering, streamlining and organizing my computer and technology.
Yesterday’s ninja inbox-management was gruelling – and I’m exhausted! If you launched an all-out assult on your inbox too, then I bet you’re hoping for an easy day today. Relax – it is. 🙂
I’ve spent much of today fine-tuning my email-management system and working through the tasks I created in step 6.
The new thing I’ve done is to declutter my desktop.
How I Decluttered My Computer Desktop
– With Organizing Tips For You
1. I Ruthlessly Deleted Documents, Images and Files From My Desktop
Like many people I tend, when busy or short of time, to use my desktop as a de facto to-do list. I drop things there so I’ll see them and be reminded that I need to read something or take some action.
Before long though, it becomes untidy and distracting.
So today I scanned each item and, unless I really wanted to do something with it, I happily moved it into trash.
Love that satisfying toss-in-the-trash sound!
Organizing Tips:
- The reality of life in the 21st century is that we will never have time for everything. Documents will remain unread, tasks undone, projects unfinished – or perhaps unstarted. Until you make peace with this reality, you will needlessly stress yourself out.
- Once you accept that you cannot read, do, or finish everything, you can then start to put your focus on what matters most. This little gem of an epiphany is the essence of every time-management strategy there is.
- So as you scan the confusion of icons on your desktop, remember to focus on what matters. If trying to do everything is working a treat for you then keep everything. If not, then let things go. Into the trash* with them!
* Make this decision based on your own situation. Don’t delete your boss’s pet project and blame me. 🙂
2. I Moved Everything Else Into A ‘Desktop’ Documents Folder
Now this might seem like a bit of visual trickery bet there’s a good reason for it.
I want us to get used to how organized our desktops look and how uncluttered we feel when there’s nothing there. No distractions. No mental clutter. No visual untidiness. This is what we will aim for from now on.
Organizing Tips:
- Create a new folder under Documents and call it Desktop.
- Drag everything you’ve decided to keep in there.
- Note: You may already see something called Desktop at the same level as your Documents folder – this is probably your actual desktop. It should now be empty!
Your Turn!
Do you need to continue with inbox-management steps from yesterday?
What do you need to do to restore order to your computer desktop?
Or do you use your computer desktop in a different way?
Done and it only took a minute! 😀
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I love my clean desktop!
I know right! Feels great. 🙂
Done! Except, I also deleted my junk folder, but have a back up cleaner, which I’m currently using!
I still like to keep my to do list on my desktop using “stickies”. I would rather have an electronic post it not on my desk top than paper ones pasted all over my office!!
It’s good to have a back-up of anything you might need Tony. 🙂
Beverly Hansen OMalley If a system works for you then definitely stick with it Beverly! 🙂
Wow! That was easy, but now I have to remember that I created a folder in my documents called “Desktop” and what documents they contain. It was a little easier on my desktop itself. But I know having items on your desktop takes up a lot of memory! At work I was always told to keep it clean!
We’ll sort through those documents soon, Anita. 🙂
I recently did a very similar purge at work – we reorganized our department which involved switching workstations, and at the same time, my computer’s permissions were so tied in knots that it had to be completely rebuilt. I spent quite a bit of time cleaning off my desktop on my computer as well as my documents folder, trying to get things neat and tidy for when the tech folks were ready to do the rebuild. I also recycled TONS of paper before switching to my new desk. It was amazing. I still have more stuff to sort through (the stuff I couldn’t just toss, but have to figure out what to do with), but it’s so nice to have things neat and clean. Now I’m trying to find bits of time to do the same thing to my house.
‘It’s so nice to have things neat and clean’ – isn’t it a lovely feeling Leslie!
Good luck with your house decluttering too. You’ll find lots of suggestions and some programs to help here at Get Organized Wizard. 🙂
I tend to use my desktop (work PC) for shortcuts to the progs & folders that I use most often, but then I tend to save work in progress on the desktop as well…case in point, the other day I was creating a newsletter and ended up with about 15 additional things on my desktop (pics to put in the newsletter, the intro that I wrote which had to be sent off separately to be approved, etc etc).
It was so satisfying deleting it all once it was done! I just saved the original source file and the finished PDF into the relevant place on our shared drive at work, and then my desktop was free again…well, mostly.
I find having a nice picture on my desktop helps, as then I don’t want icons obscuring the picture – and I know once it gets to that point that I have to have another sort-out.
On a related note, I’ve been going through my inbox (work) today as it’s been getting out of hand. I’m now down to 59 emails! Woohoo! I use Outlook at work and I find categorising my emails to be really helpful – I have multiple roles at work so it’s easier for me to categorise them. That way, when I’m doing the company finances, I can arrange my emails by categories and go through all the ones categorised as ‘finance’. When I’m doing HR stuff for work then I look at my HR category. That way at least I’m chunking the work and not skipping from one thing to the next.**.
(**well, most of the time.)
That’s a good point about the nice picture on your desktop Nikki. I have a nebula galaxy that I love to love at. 🙂
BTW for your work inbox, did you see the previous post in this series? http://www.getorganizedwizard.com/blog/2012/07/how-to-organize-your-email-computer-and-technology-part-2/ Though it sounds like you’re on top of that!