Sometimes it is not so much about the belongings we have but more about how we display them. This organising truth, hit home to me this week, after analysing my desk which over the last couple of weeks had become fairly messy.

I asked myself;

How the desk could look more peaceful?
How it could be a better place to work?

Display your items in an organised way and watch the space transform

These are the things that were done to transform my desk in no time.

I moved allot of the files that I had upright and it looked so much better in an instant.

Things that I needed to keep around the desk but looked messy I kept in a drawer.
I made a distinction between infrequently filled paper and regularly filled paper simply by the spot where I placed the files.
All files were quickly labelled for easy reference.
Files became colour coordinated for easy reference, my study folders are different from my home or business folders.

Even though you display your items in an organised way, make sure you still Declutter

As always when we organising anything, some stuff needed to be culled and I needed to put a few things away. As a rule of thumb, I would say clearing your desk, takes about 30 minutes per week if you haven’t put items away. A neglected desk can take a few hours, days, or weeks to clear, depending on the level of neglect. With spaces like desks you need to go slow, have an hour-long declutter session and then have a good rest, let your subconscious mind work some overtime on the desk. Ask yourself some questions; why am I not putting things away? What is the cause of my paper piles? The answer might be as simple as; because they don’t have a spot or because the spot was too hard to get to which resulted in the; ‘bugger it, I’ll do it later pile’.

This is a good time of year to spend a bit of time finishing off projects you have worked on during the year and to think about things you want to change in the New Year. Our desks being a central hub of activity for most of us, are a great space to start this process.