What Color is Your Desk?

Today I saw something I hadn’t seen in a long time.  The top of my desk.

My desk — and perhaps yours, too — has a tendency to be covered in paper.   About once a week, I focus my energy on processing the unprocessed mail and filing the unfiled papers.  Yet there was always a core pile that defied resolution and that would have to wait “until later”.

Today, I resolved the unresolvable pile.

Like most clutter, it was all about decision-making: picking up each piece of paper and deciding whether to act on it, file it, or toss it.

It took me most of the morning, but eventually, it was done.  It was so thrilling to see the top of my desk again, I even took some pictures.

When I brought in today’s mail, I opened a letter that needed to be filed.  Rather than throwing it on my desk and dealing with it later, I filed it right away.  (There’s the Broken Windows Theory in action).  I’m hoping that I can keep up this new habit so that my desk stays clear.

Many years ago, I remember writing to a friend that if I ever finished watching all the videotapes I had recorded, caught up on my backlog of magazines, and cleaned off my desk, I could finally die.

By sheer coincidence, I am caught up on both my magazines and my video recordings.

But I’ve still got a lot of unread books on the shelf, so I’m going to have to live a bit longer.