Clean desk policy

Ideally I’d like to start every day with a completely clean desk and no piles of paper silting up the floor and furniture.

But having Power of Attorney for both my elderly parents and handling all their financial, household and health concerns, as well as my work, means I accumulate a lot of paper.

Over the months the correspondence and notes had built up around me and were a constant, depressing reminder of how much I have to do. One of the biggest hurdles to tackle was my annual accounts, which for months I’d been telling my accountant I was in the process of doing, honest :-/

So having finally got to grips with that, the feeling of satisfaction was so great that I decided to carry straight on and do my usual New Year clearout early. It’s an ongoing process of going through all those piles as well as the drawers in my pedestal and filing cabinet.

So far I’ve reduced a full drawer to half a drawer, and made enough inroads into another that I can now move the hanging files around whereas before they were wedged in solid. That’s a lot of paper to recycle and shred. I’ve also reclaimed a heap of paper clips and made myself a new supply of scrap paper.

One of the great things about being on a bit of a mission like this is that new ideas pop up as you go. For years I’ve had two red wire filing trays, one on the pedestal next to my desk and the other on top of the filing cabinet…if I replaced them with a stacking set of trays it would give me more storage while taking up only half the space.

Browsing on Amazon I found an even better solution – I stumbled on these wire letter tray spacers that do the same job with my existing trays at an eminently affordable £3.68! Only available in black sadly, but I’m not too bothered about that.

I haven’t quite achieved that clean desk yet and I’m still working on those hanging files, but progress is being made every day.

Do you aim to have a clear desk or do you agree with the theory that a messy desk makes for more creativity?