So, as all six of my regular readers will know, about a month ago I did a big desk cleanup at work. You can read that post to find out about the motivation… What I’m here to do today is give you all an update on how it’s going. This entry was actually inspired by a comment made on that previous post.

So it’s actually been a little more then a month since I dug down to find the grey horizontal cubicle shelf that I refer to as my desk. The fact that I work in a monstrous cubicle farm is a subject I like to gripe about. We’re a creative company… with a decidedly uncreative work area. That, of course, is a topic for another post. For now lets stick with the organization of my little grey box.

For the last month I have actually done very well with keeping the area clean. I’ve received several tips via email by folks who apparently don’t like to comment on my blog. These people have all sorts of tricks they use to stay organized. Even my Mom chimed in with a tip of her own. In the end though, I didn’t heed a lot of the tips… I just sort of did it.

It’s actually taken a lot of real thought to do. The first few days I would find myself instinctively just putting papers on the desk after I’ve read them and moved on to something else. I had to stop what I was doing and remind myself to put it in it’s correct file. Luckily my work is project based so it’s easy to come up with an organization system. Each project has a folder, and each folder has a slot on a desktop folder display/ramp/holder thingy. So in the beginning it was tough, but now I’m kind of on autopilot.

Another tough part was making sure my desk was clean at the end of each day. I work like crazy all day, and it’s really fast paced. so I used to just work right up until my leaving time… then when the clock hit the designated time I dropped what I was doing and left. Now when I arrive I set a little alarm on my cell phone for about 15 minutes before quitting time (changes from day-to-day). When the alarm goes off I start my cleanup. Most days that just means sorting a small stack of invoices, POs, requests, photos, drawings, and other stuff into their folders. Other days it means making sure that my computer desktop is clean of icons as well… all those data documents have a folder too! And if I have somehow gotten my hands on an old fashioned graphite pencil, that day will call for a wipe down of the desk surface (for some reason I can’t hold onto a pencil without writing all over everything and getting graphite shavings everywhere).

I still can’t say that it’s made me any more effective, or more efficient in what I do. But I’m sure it’s nicer for folks who have to look at my desk… And hopefully it looks like I’m totally in control. Of course I will still maintain that it’s nice to show up in the morning to a clean desk, so I guess it does help me capture that hour or so of work I was losing while I got situated in the morning.

I’ll post again about this if anything really comes of it. 🙂