Procrastination is one of the biggest causes to desktop clutter. 1) Starting a project and procrastinating the clean up is a big one. You get out all your materials to pay your bills. You pay the bills, but then you walk away leaving out the calculator, the bill inserts, the receipts, the ledger… You work on a project for work or a volunteer project. You run out of time for the day. You walk off and leave the project spread out on your desk. You go to a networking event and pick up a bunch of business cards. Instead of responding to the contacts and filing away the cards, you walk off and leave them on your desk. You bring in your mail. You “cherry pick” a couple of items to look at and leave the stack of bills on your desk. 2) You put off making decisions is another. Papers come across your desk and you don’t take the time to make up your mind what to do with them- toss? file? respond? – so you lay them on the desk “just for now.” You shop for extra office supplies but you don’t make the decision where to put them so you drop them on your desk “just for now.”
Taking the time it takes now to clear up each project so that you are ready to begin a new one and taking the time now to decide how to respond to incoming papers and where to put purchases will save you a lot of time later as you search for items or get distracted in your desk work because of all that clutter.
Jonda S. Beattie Professional Organizer
Comments