10 Tips to Help Maintain Your Clean Desk

clean your messy desk

How much stuff do you have sitting on your desk or in your work area? Does it look picture above, or is there a place for everything, with everything in its place?

Coopers & Lybrand once conducted a study on personal organization. One statistic found that, “The average desk worker has 36 hours worth of work on their desk and spends up to 3 hours a week just “looking” for STUFF!”

I make effort to keep my desk at work organized, but it’s a different story in my home office. I know how much time I spend looking for a receipt, bill, or any amount of paper that is buried in a pile on my messy desk. Being disorganized is responsible for a lot of wasted time.

If you have a messy desk, it takes disciplined effort and time to get it clean. Once you’ve gone through that process, you need to have a system to keep the desk clean long term.

Here are some tips to help maintain a clean desk:

  1. Sort your mail and toss junk as it arrives. Even with an in-basket, you need to process your mail daily to avoid accumulating a stack of paper.
  2. Get rid of sticky notes and scraps of paper. Get a single notebook and use it to record notes, phone numbers, web addresses, ideas, to-dos, etc.
  3. Create a list or binder of regular reference material, such as phone numbers, and keep it accessible in a desk drawer.
  4. Schedule filing time at least once per week.
  5. Add dated or calendar items to a tickler file system or a diary as soon as they arrive.
  6. When you stop working on something, put it away until the next time you need it. Don’t leave half-completed projects sitting on your desktop.
  7. Keep nothing on your desk unless you absolutely need them. If you aren’t joining sheets of paper with tape, move the dispenser off the desk. If you want personal photos in the office, have only one on the desk or better yet, hang them on the wall.
  8. Keep a reading folder for material you need to read. Schedule a regular reading time to clear that material.
  9. Create a “waiting for” or pending file to hold items dependent on outside action.
  10. Create a weekly appointment to clean your desk and this includes dusting or polishing. You might be less inclined to mess up a shiny desk. ;)

It doesn’t take much for your workspace to fill up with things that eat at your productivity. The key to keeping a desk clean is a few simple and regular good habits. You’ll be surprised how much extra time you’ll free up for getting things done.