Time to Clean my Desk

You can tell when I have been incredibly busy as my desk doesn't get cleaned. I was looking at my desk in the office this morning and thinking that I really need to clean it up. I have mentioned before how a good work environment is critical to helping focus on a project. This morning I have some extra time and so I will clean up my desk.

I am trying to figure out why my desk gets so messy. Part of the problem is that I think I am afraid to throw anything away. The moment my trash has been emptied is exactly when I realize that I shouldn't have thrown something away. The sad thing is that what I really need is a note scribbled in the margin of an unimportant and unrelated paper.

Another reason my desk gets so messy is that I take a lot of notes. Generally I try to use an engineering notebook for all of the important stuff. If I know I won't need the information in the future, I will write on a yellow tablet and then throw it away when I am done. Unfortunately I will write one of those super-important and unrelated notes in the margin and end up keeping the paper and cluttering my desk.

Finally I like to create piles. If I don't know what to do with something, I will put it in a pile of other stuff I don't know what to do with. It is a practice that drives my wife crazy. She will walk around the house questioning me about piles of junk in various corners. Eventually the piles get moved to my office which is where they needed to go anyways. I guess that means I am good at getting my wife to clean up after me. Now I just wish she would come hang out in my office at work.