National Clean Off Your Desk Day

Today is National Clean Off Your Desk Day.  This should be a holiday!!  I need a day off from work to get this accomplished and maybe even a week.  Take a look at these pictures and tell me if you agree.

I’m embarrassed to say that none of this was staged.  I walked in my craft room/office and this is what I saw.  I took pictures and walked back out.  I need HELP!

Luckily, I have a special friend, Darla, over at Heart Work Organizing (www.heartworkorg.com) and she is a professional organizer.  She has started a series over at her blog entitled “31 Days of Clutter Free Living” and guess what the first post was?  Cleaning your desk!  Yes, cleaning your physical desk top.  I was so excited to see this that I  just had to share it on National Clean Off Your Desk Day.

She makes it more of a game and not such a daunting task.  I dare you to read Darla’s helpful tips to get that desk cleaned off in a SNAP.  Here it is:

 

Welcome to January, otherwise known as Get Organized Month, or simply GO Month, by professional organizers everywhere. I’m really looking forward to inspiring you this month with 31 small projects that can have a big impact on you this year. Here’s your first of 31 Days of Clutter-Free Living, starting with organizing the physical desktop.

First, you’ll set a timer for 15 minutes, but wait until you are done reading this to hit the timer start.

Let’s clear your physical desktop. Why? It’s hard to get organized if you have no space to get organized. So we’re going to give you a little breathing room. Someplace to put your paws. You are going to see real estate that you might not have seen in quite some time! Piles be gone (sort of).

Hopefully you have a home office, but if you don’t, head to where your piles accumulate. If you don’t have a home office, chances are good they are probably on the kitchen table.

Remember, you only have between 15 and 30 minutes for this project, so let’s not try to go through aaalllll the piles of paper, okay? That comes later. I pinky promise! In fact, right now, I want you to start on the left side of your desk, pick up the piles of paper, and stack them over to the right.That’s it. Go ahead. Take those small stacks and make them one big stack over to the right. (Feeling contrary? It’s ok to go right-to-left.)

That took 30 seconds. Now spend the next 15 minutes clearing off the rest of the non-paper STUFF that landed on your desk.

• Book you meant to read? Carry it over to the bookshelf.
• Water bottle? It’s probably been there a while. Toss in the recycling bin.
• Round up all the pencils and pens. How many mugs or drawers did you fill?
• Candy wrappers, lip gloss, and some broken craft project that the kids stashed there months ago? They are probably all trash.
• Checkbook? Hey, you’ve been looking for that!

Keep working quickly. With the paper out of the way, you should be able to clear some space on your desk or table that you haven’t seen in a while.

OK, the 15 minute timer goes off, and what do you do?

Option A- Go shoot some pool, or walk the dog, or anything besides organizing. You’ve done your time. Pat yourself on the back.

Option B- If you are in a groove, reset the timer for 15 more minutes, clear your desk completely, and you’ll be an organizing superstar! When the second timer goes off, pat yourself on the back.

Organizing Your Physical Desktop

If your piles are really out of control, you might not feel like you made much of a dent but you DID!

You’ve still got that stack of papers on the right corner of your desk, but now you have ROOM to write lists, create file folders, and lay out a project if you need to.

You won’t have to MOVE STUFF before you can ORGANIZE STUFF. Doesn’t that feel great?

Don’t worry about what’s in the drawers, what’s on the floor or in any other part of the room. Our mission is just to organize the physical desktop today, right?

OK, start that 15 minute timer and GO!

Great job! Good for you! Come back again tomorrow and let’s work on some more organizing projects that you can do in 15 or 30 minutes.

I’d love to hear about your success throughout the month. Of course, if you leave a comment here, lots of people will cheer you on. But I’ve also opened up a whole new place for us: The HeartWork Organizing Peaceful, Clutter-Free Living Facebook Group. Just click and ask to join. There’s no fee, no membership ritual, no funny business…but we will recognize each other by our organizing projects! Come on over and meet me there today!

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Well, what did you think?  Do you think you can give up 15 to 30 minutes and find a clean desk top?   I double dog dare you to give it a try.  It’s only 15 minutes or so and look what can happen when you do.

I cleaned off TWO Desks.

Miracles!  Darla has me so motivated that I’m now doing a complete Craft Room/Office Make over.  Stay tuned for that.  Should be on the blog January 28th.   You might also want to join Darla’s Facebook Clutter Free Living Facebook Group.

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