As the axiom goes, a cluttered desk is the sign of a creative mind. Is this true? Or is this too general a statement? It depends on the desk, the mind, and the day. Let’s dissect this recipe.

     Nothing great ever (or very rarely) comes out of chaos. You might cite the Big Bang as something that did erupt from pandemonium, but we’re talking a desk here, slightly more contained. Depending upon what it is that you use your desk for, the existence of mess may affect you more than other people — think inefficiency, negative impressions, anarchy — but all people suffer in a state of chaos. Why? Because time, as abstract a concept as it may be, is limited. If you don’t believe me, read my book.

     Wasted time is wasted life. 

     I am going to use my desk as an example here, because as a writer, I am at my desk sometimes for 14 hours a day, and I have a metric tonne of paperwork. Yes, I get that this is the digital age, but writing involves reading, and editing, and to me, that’s a visual activity. That means manuscripts galore. But my desk is tidy.

     A messy desk means that you cannot put your finger on what you need right when you need it. Results? Wasted time, not to mention, significant frustration, possible cursing.

     Professional organizers make a good living by sorting out the disorganization of other people. These people are not neurosurgeons and what they do is pure logic and simple planning. You can do it, too. Key, however, is that once you have your desk de-cluttered and better organized, you need to keep it that way.

     If I am working on, for example, a novel, and I want to find a particularly well written passage from one of my stage plays to include in my prose, I can find it in seconds. My works are stored in a filing cabinet next to my desk, and are sorted, naturally, in alphabetical order. Where they are not stored is on my desk in great heaps of manuscripts. I also have a set of shelves that are on casters, so moveable, and on those I keep 12×9 storage baskets about two inches deep. In these, I place things that I am currently writing and because I can set the baskets inside one another, I place a white sheet of paper with the title of the piece on top of the paperwork so that I can easily find it if other baskets are stacked on top of it.

     Here are some tips on clearing your desk, keeping it maintained thusly, and proving to yourself for once and for all that a tidy desk IS in fact a sign of a creative, and calm, mind:

1. Clear off your dining room table; you’re going to need some space to sort this stuff out.

2. Take the cat off the dining room table.

3. Pour a tea, coffee, water, glass of wine, whatever, to make the chore more relaxing.

4. Put on some good music.

5. Remove everything from the top of your desk. Everything, with the possible exception of computer equipment.

6. Should you take the stuff out of the desk drawers, too? If the drawers are a mess, yes.

7. Four piles: 1. garbage and recyclables; 2. stuff you need to keep for future reference; 3. stuff you work on fairly often; stuff you are working on now and will be for the next few days, one week max. Only the latter gets a place back on your desk; the others? A nearby shelf, a filing cabinet and the circular file (rubbish bin).

Return the items, but not all of them to your desk.

     Once this organizational step is complete, then there is one more thing left to do, preferably for these doing day-job work at their desks, and absolutely for those doing any type of creative work: get your chores done. That’s the magic bullet. Tidy the cat litter, load the dishwasher, put the clothes in the dyer, clean the toilet. No, I’m not suggesting that you do an entire week’s worth of housework before you sit down at your desk, but those little niggly tasks that creep into your sub-conscience when you’re trying to write War & Peace are going to nag the pudding out of you. Do them first. It might take half an hour, but you’ll be able to work freely and guilt-free. It’s worth it!