Remember when you were a kid, how finishing every bite of food on your plate qualified you to be a member of the “Clean Plate Club”? As adults watching our waistlines, we’d do better to get rid of the clutter in our work areas (rather than the crumbs on our plates) and join the Clean Desk Club.

Of course, this is not primarily about aesthetics of tidiness. An organized desk preserves four life/work essentials: sanity, functionality, security and reputation. As many of us here operate our businesses in a home environment, these four qualities are even more likely to evade us than they do our colleagues with office space. The essentials are:

SANITY – Don’t doubt it for a minute--clutter is distracting. It’s already hard enough to pay bills, sign permission slips or plan business strategy with the environmental clutter of phone calls and interruptions deterring your focus. Tangible clutter on and around your desk too easily hides your work PRIORITIES under sedimentary rock-like layers while sending out a siren call, forcing you to cast your glance on low-priority attention-stealers. Having to select 4 pens from your pencil cup before finding one that works is enough to drive anyone around the bend. Clear the decks…and clear your desk…to turn chaos into calm.

Are you about to swear to me that you have to have everything out or you'll forget to do it? Well, if yesterday's #1 super-important task is buried under today's #1 super-important task, is it really reminding you of anything?

FUNCTIONALITY – An organized desk helps you save time and money, allowing you to focus on the essential tasks at hand. With reference papers put away in labeled files (instead of toppling piles) and action items awaiting your attention in a tickler file, you can concentrate on your priorities.

My mantra is: “Don’t put things down; put them away!” Define homes for reference and research files, action items and office supplies based on the Prime Real Estate principle—the more often you use something (or should be using it), the closer it should be to you.

This also means that to be functional, you're going to have to PUT THINGS AWAY. Think of it as an insurance policy; it may annoy you to pay premiums, but you'd prefer the small cost to a large loss. The ten seconds it will take you to put away an important client folder where it belongs, plus the ten seconds it will take to retrieve it—a combined investment of twenty seconds—may be a petty annoyance, but that's far superior to sweating the minutes, hours or days searching for a lost document.

SECURITY – Who wanders by your desk? Customers, vendors, consultants? Friends and family, maintenance staff and colleagues? Even in a home office, where only the UPS guy, babysitter and pizza delivery gal see your desk, it’s crucial to protect sensitive data from disclosure—whether that’s your Social Security number and bank data, clients’ proprietary information or personnel files. The more clutter in your desktop environment, the harder it is to know when something is missing or if prying eyes have settled on them.

Lock sensitive papers and computer backups in fire-safe drawers or filing cabinets; secure laptops with security cables and desktop computers with passwords (and firewalls); shred any sensitive data you no longer need. Don’t post sensitive information on your walls and the periphery of your computer screen! (Take a look around—can you see your IDs & passwords, account numbers or intellectual property? Then so can everyone else!)

REPUTATION – If clients and colleagues seem reluctant about trusting your judgment, or if your family fears giving you important papers to deal with, the problem may be your desk. Many people assume a cluttered desk represents a cluttered mind. While it’s more important to be sane, functional and secure, preserving your reputation by keeping your desk clear of clutter and maintaining essential items labeled and at arm’s length will help you achieve your goals. Anecdotal research has shown that elementary school teachers are swayed in favor of students with organized desks. Is there any doubt that supervisors, customers, patients or mothers-in-law might be similarly swayed?

Whether you're a member of Corporate America or the head of I'm-Paying-Vendor-Bills-So-You're-Making-Dinner Inc., whether you’re a CEO or aspiring to be one, join the Clean Desk Club for an organized, calm, secure and more productive environment.

You've got a small block of prime real estate—pretend you're being charged by the square inch. Do you really want to give over that much space to an artsy tape dispenser when you haven't used Scotch® tape more than twice all year? I challenge you to set a timer for ten minutes and see what you can put away, throw out, or otherwise move to help you become a member of the Clean Desk Club.

Do you need any further inspiration to organize your desk? Share with us what's on your desk that shouldn't be (because it's messing up your sanity, functionality, security or reputation) or tell us about your drama.

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Julie Bestry
Best Results Organizing
"Don't apologize. Organize!"
organize@juliebestry.com
Visit http://www.juliebestry.com to save time and money, reduce stress and increase your productivity

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