5 easy steps to de-clutter your desk

You’ll likely spend more time scavenging your desk for paperwork than on vacation this year. In fact, the average executive pilfers six weeks a year searching for important documents buried in clutter, according to the Wall Street Journal. Simple tidying could avoid that kind of egregious waste of time and productivity. One useful tip: color-code hanging files to distinguish between different types of files—such as project or client folders--just by glancing it them, advises Donna Smallin, author of The One Minute Organizer Plain and Simple. Quit frittering away your valuable time with Smallin’s top five tips for de-cluttering your desk.

1. Treat Virtual Folders Like the Real Thing When creating electronic folders, set them up in the same way as physical ones. Use subfolders within desktop folders to organize files sufficiently.

2. Avoid the Miscellaneous File
Sort day-to-day papers into action files. Label them clearly: Bills to pay, receipts to enter, papers to photocopy, data for reports, items to discuss with your boss or papers to forward to another department. Store them upright in a stepped desktop organizer. Don’t make a “miscellaneous” file—if the information isn’t important enough to have its own label, it either belongs in another folder or in the trash.

3. Sort Your Desk Drawers Organize your desk drawers so that each contains like items—office supplies in one drawer, stationery and notepads in another. This eliminates scrounging through your drawers to find the only pen you work with, or a post-it at deadline time.

Click here for the next two Steps to De-Clutter Your Desk

By Eileen Conlan - Career & Money Blogger - Marie Claire

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From the Community…

Comments 1-2 of 2

Posted by superkate Tue Jul 22, 2008 11:33am PDT

I love office organization (I know I am wierd) I could hang out in office supply stores for hours. One of my tricks is to purchase wall pockets and label them with the timeframe the job needs to be done. Today, one week & within 2 weeks, etc. Or to have a calender and mark as to when deadlines were promised and to chart the time it will take to get items done. Color coding is the best time saver in the world. I go so far as to color code the hanging files, the file folders, the tabs for the hanging folder and highlighters to match. And for some odd reason I always have to make the files that represent me making money (client files) green. It just makes me happier. Haha! I told you I was wierd, but only about office items.

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Posted by Igor Purlantov Sat Jul 26, 2008 9:04pm PDT

One of the keys to keeping your desk clutter free is to follow the simple rule that if you do not use it loose it. Although the loose it part does not necessarily mean you have to throw it away, it does mean that if there is something on your desk, whether a folder full of documents or the stress ball you got for your birthday, and you have not used it in more than three months you should either give it away or store it away in a place somewhere off your desk.

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