Peace of Mind Organizing

Worth repeating (again): Ten minutes to calm

12 October 2018

I wrote this post in 2014, but it’s as true today as it was then. The items on my desk have changed, but the need to focus on clearing it for just a few minutes hasn’t. It’s amazing the results that ten minutes of focused tidying can produce!

Yesterday afternoon, I sat down at my cleared-off desk (I’d cleared it because the housecleaner was coming that morning), and proceeded to trash it. I don’t know what happened—I think I was looking for something I’d written down but couldn’t find. Plus I’d probably dumped some stuff on the desk when I came home. (Yikes.)

I eventually found what I was looking for and turned my attention to my computer screen so that I could get some work done, but the stuff remained all over my desk.

I didn’t really need to use my desk’s surface—my work was focused on my computer—but I still couldn’t get anything done. The ideas weren’t flowing. I was distracted by my messy desk.

So after an hour or so of spinning my wheels, I decided to do something about the desktop. Good organizer that I am, I took a before picture. Then I pressed play on a ten-minute playlist in iTunes and I started putting stuff away. And throwing stuff away. I made file folders and filed a few papers. I added some items to my task list.

Here’s what happened in just ten minutes:

Messy desk before:

Just ten minutes later:

I’m continually impressed with how powerful just a small amount of time decluttering can be. The trick is to pick a small space and finish in the allotted time—don’t leave it half done. The other trick is to do it fairly often; I dealt with yesterday’s clutter so quickly because it was not very deep.

Take a look around the room you’re in. Is there a little space (a shelf? a surface?) that you could declutter this weekend? Trust me, it’ll feel so good.

Tagged with: 15 minutes, clean desk, decluttering, worth repeating

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