Clean Up Your Desktop: A Tutorial

I haven't been to your house recently, but at my house organization is a daily challenge. No, hourly. Sometimes just 5 minutes means the difference between order and chaos. While there are innumerable things I have absolutely no control over, I'll show you how I've taken control of my desktop.  My little now-under-control corner of the world.

Back in the day I liked photos for my desktop, but lately I'm into nice and clean and simple. There's so much needed stuff on the desktop I really don't want anything going on behind it any more. I wanted to create areas on my desktop that make it clear what's urgent, what I could or should be working on next, and what's available to me as I work.

I started by looking in my system preferences for my screen resolution. Mine is set at 2560 x 1440, and this'll vary based on the size and proportions of your screen.

I created a blank document using those dimensions.

In that document I left enough room in the upper right for my Skype window to sit where it won't block anything. The other areas are labeled "Urgent", "Sketch" and "Resources". The things I really need to get done, the things that are in progress or need to get some soon, and the files where I store all of the stuff that's done or can sit for a while. I used Illustrator to create this, but you can just as easily use whatever you're familiar with. One big box of color in the background, three boxes of color, three lines of text that match the background so that they look like they're punched through. Easy.

When my design was laid out the way I wanted it, I saved it as a PDF. JPG and PNG will work too, I think, depending on your individual computing scenario. I chose my file and "stretch to fill screen", though if the size of your file is correct it should fit exactly.

This next part is specifically Mac - but I'm guessing there's a similar option on PC. Once your background is in place, you can drag your folders to the areas you want them. They'll probably look a bit messy. So...

Select just the ones you want to clean up...

And select "View" and then "Clean Up Selection"

 And they'll snap into place neatly!

So on my screen I now have everything sorted out.

And room in the middle for a browser window. And whatever else I'm working on.

Anything new I save automatically drops onto the far right of my desktop. That makes it easy for me to see what needs to be sorted into wherever it belongs. I purposely made the "Urgent" and "Sketch" sections small because really, only so much can be urgent at a time. It forces me to prioritize.

So I'm guessing there are quite a few of you who are thinking that this is OCD overkill. Maybe. But it helps me get work done, especially when I'm frequently interrupted by noisy co-workers of the 3 and 5 year-old variety.