#Acrylic to cover desk how to

Transient stuff breaks into three categories: input to be processed, action reminders, and project support materials. So we’ve seen the four categories of permanent stuff: equipment, supplies, decoration, and reference. This doesn’t go on your desktop, but in file cabinets and on bookshelves. The last category of permanent stuff is reference. It’s good to have this, just keep it to a minimum or you desk will end up overly cluttered.Įmpty cans of Mountain Dew do not count as decoration. If you have some things on your desk that don’t seem to be doing anything, but you like to have them around, then they probably are serving as decoration. You can also learn more about this in my post The Tools You Need to Have (and Where to Keep Them).

We’ll also cover where to keep your supplies that are kept at your desk (for example: only keep one or two pens on the desk and the rest in drawers) when we talk about the desktop and desk drawers.

#Acrylic to cover desk how to

I’ll talk about the supply area and how to set it up towards the end of the series. Keep what you need there, but don’t use it to store a bunch of extra stuff, because that will clutter things up and your desk will no longer be smooth and functional. This again goes back to the principle of making your desk like a cockpit. This means that you keep at your desk only enough to meet your needs, and you store extras in a supply room, closet, overhead bin, or something like that. Some of this could actually be considered equipment (pens, probably), but the point in regard to supplies is that they are things that need to be replenished. The principle is that you only keep on your desk the equipment that you use every day.Įxamples of supplies would be paper pads, pens, pencils, paper clips, rubber bands. Things like staplers, label makers, and tape dispensers are also equipment, but should be in drawers (which I’ll also discuss). As I’ll cover in the post on organizing your desktop, that’s about all the equipment you should have on your desk. Temporary stuff breaks down into: input to be processed, action reminders, and support materials.Įxamples of equipment would be your computer monitor, keyboard, mouse, telephone, and in-box. Permanent stuff breaks down into four categories: equipment, supplies, decoration, and reference. There are two main categories of stuff at your desk: permanent stuff and temporary stuff. I think that this is more effective than just “tips on how to keep your desk clear.” The tips often don’t go to the core of the issue they are just tips. But I did that mostly in anticipation of this series, so here’s the gist in a bit more detail.īasically, if you have a context for understanding the types of stuff at your desk, you will be more likely to use it better and design your work area better. I covered the basics of how to understand the stuff at your desk in my second post on productivity tools and in my notes on workspace organization. Everything at your desk falls into just a few categories This leaves room to spread things out when you are actually working and just plain gives room to breathe, which keeps your thinking from getting all walled up.Ģ. So be a minimalist when it comes to what you have on your desk permanently. A desk is for working, not storing stuff. Do not aim to occupy every fragment of space.

This implies that you should have fingertip access to the things that you use and do most often, and enough surface area to do your work and create (temporary!) groupings as needed on the desktop (which you clear away when done - more on that later).Ĭlear space is good. You want to be able to move quickly and with minimal drag. As such, it needs to be lean and function with ease. You want your desk to be an effective, efficient “home base” for dealing with stuff and executing work. This is perhaps the guiding principle here. Post 2 in the series: How to Set Up Your Deskīefore getting into the specifics of where to put your desk, how to organize and use your desktop and drawers most effectively, and how to set up the rest of your room/cubicle/work area, it is important to have some basic principles before us.