Sometimes my biggest distraction when I sit down to work isn’t incoming phone calls, instant messages, or people barging in to talk to me. It’s my workspace. The area itself has taken on so much clutter — papers, books, toys, and even food — that I can’t adequately focus. I really need to get a handle on this today, and I thought it might help to share the process.
Here we go, then: how to declutter a hopelessly messy workspace.
What needs to be there?
Instead of starting with the attitude of keeping everything and moving or throwing away things one by one, start with a blank desk and add back the stuff you can’t work without. My laptop and second display take up a ton of space on my desk, but I can’t very well get rid of them, because I use them for work. Other than that, I just need my phone, and occasionally a pen and pad.
What are you going to do with all that paper?
Paper is probably the biggest source of clutter in my work life. I don’t even use it, it just comes in the mail each day and never gets adequately processed. This is where you do as I say, not as I do, and process your paper as you receive it. Recycle, shred, file it in an inbox … do anything but allow it to grow across your desk and take over your space. Of course, avoiding paper in the first place is the best way to prevent this, but that’s a subject for another post.
Clear off your walls and floor
The workspace is more than just a desk. If you’re going to go truly distraction-free, make sure you’ve got unadorned, solid-colored walls in your field of vision. Also, don’t let too much junk pile up on the floor. I know it sounds crazy to the neat-freaks amongst you, but I can see a pile of dirty laundry on the floor out of the corner of my eye, taunting me as I write this post. That’ll never do.
Clean up your computer’s dock and desktop
You probably spend more time looking at your computer’s dock and desktop than anything else in your office, so keep them clean and free of distractions. I’m on a temporary detox from Twitter and Facebook right now — another subject that deserves its own post — and I’ve found that removing the bookmarks and apps associated with those sites also blocks my habit of clicking on them every 5 minutes while I’m working. The same goes for games and other time-wasters. Hide them anywhere but the desktop.
That’s obviously not everything you can do, but it’s definitely a good start. If you work from the premise that everything in your workspace has to be essential or very useful to earn its place, you should be able to maintain an environment that’s clean and distraction-free. You don’t have to be a monk, you just have to recycle your paper and take out your pizza boxes when you finish with them.
Jay is a freelance writer based in Seattle, WA. He blogs about software for Download Squad and contributes interviews to Geek Monthly magazine, among others. You can also find him on Twitter.
Photo Credit – jeffreydenver
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
great post! I find that I can’t focus when I have a messy desk – so i’ve taken the drastic step of having nothing on my desk except for 1 notepad and of course a monitor. But I think I need to do more and clean up my cluttered walls as well