Imagine this scenario:

You sit down at your desk, ready for a nice, productive day of work. You need a specific file to get started on a new project. You look around and realize that in all the mess on your desk, you don’t have a clue where you placed the file. You start rummaging, shuffling messy piles from one section of your desk to another. After an hour and a half, you finally find the file. Now you’re upset because you wasted so much time looking for the thing to begin with.

Does this sound familiar?

Getting your desk organized will help you to become more productive, almost overnight. In fact, staying organized can shave minutes, even an hour or more off your day. Your time is precious, so don’t waste any more hunting for what you should be able to automatically lay your hands on. Use this simple 3-step process to organize your desk today:

1. Clear everything off the top of your desk. If you have to, get a box and put everything inside it. Using the one-touch rule (you can only touch everything one time), go through the box and either throw it away, put it in your To Do folder, or file it.

2. Get rid of the extra clutter. Special knick-knacks, like pictures of family members and trinket boxes that your child made you for Christmas are cute little reminders of what you love. However, if these cute little reminders are multiplying overnight and taking over your desk, then it’s time for them to go. Keep only a couple, three at the most, of these special items. Bring the rest of them home, where they belong.

3. Make a tomorrow pile. Now that your desk is clean and free of clutter, choose a certain spot on your desk for your tomorrow pile. This is simply a specific place where you will place unfinished work or things that need to be done on the following day of work.

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Ever wondered what your clutter may be saying about you? What message are you sending to others? Check out the ten different areas where you may have accumulated too much clutter and discover what that may reveal about you, your personality and your life.

Check out this article on what your personal clutter may be saying about you…you might be surprised!

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Most of us tend to think of being organized as having everything neatly stored away out of sight, with not a wisp of dust on any visible surface and not a single dirty dish lurking in our kitchen sink. As much as we might like that idea, keeping up such a standard would be nearly impossible unless we spent all day, every day cleaning!

Instead, I like to think of organization as simply keeping my living space and workspace orderly yet comfortable, while being able to find what I need, when I need it. That sure opens up a lot of possibilities, doesn’t it?

First, it frees us from the need to follow a rigid plan or overwork ourselves trying to control a constant flow of “stuff.” Let’s face it; our lives are not static. Trying to keep our homes static is an impossible goal. There will always be dishes in the process of being dirtied. There will always be laundry that is in the process of being worn, dirtied, or washed. Beds will be slept in. Books will be read. Paperwork will come in and go out. There is no way to get around this!

By acknowledging and accepting this, we relieve ourselves of a whole bunch of stress and anguish. There is no point in trying to keep our homes in a constant state of perfection because there is no such thing.

Secondly, once we realize this and really get it, we begin to see organization as an ongoing process, rather than a stationary end result. We learn to keep working at it daily, weekly, monthly and beyond. We begin relaxing our attachment to things we think we “need” and we begin prioritizing the things we bring into and keep in our homes.

Finally, we learn that keeping our belongings organized doesn’t mean we have to alphabetize our books by author and create a complex index system to locate them. We don’t have to sort our socks by color or label each tiny spice bottle in our kitchen cabinets.

We simply have to create a workable system that helps us find what we need, when we need it. That can be as simple as grouping like items together or buying some new organizational bins or shelves to better store what we have.

If you’ve been trying to get organized because you believe it will make your life run like a well-oiled machine, think again! Instead, see organization as a daily habit that will make your life a bit more peaceful and harmonious. Sure, your home will look nicer if you keep it neat and orderly, but no one will call the clutter police if your drinking glasses are not perfectly aligned according to size and shape.

Relax your ideas of what organization means, and suddenly you’ll find yourself having a lot more fun with it! If you make it a fun and enjoyable process, you’ll be much more likely to stick with it and make it a permanent part of your daily life.

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