Tidy desk, tidy mind…

I’m untidy by nature, always have been, always will be.

And yet I’m the best organiser in my family (better than Himself too), despite (some of) them being neat freaks and minimalists. So, does that challenge the saying?

I’d posit that my desk is untidy because I use it to do lots of stuff. Himself would say that’s just an excuse. But his desk is my old dining table with a surface that’s twice as large as my desk, and he works outside of the home, while my desk is my full-time work and home office. It’s so tight for space that if I want to wrap a gift, I have to use my old dining table Himself’s desk…

At least once a year, I have a major clear out – but I hate doing it.

The day job stuff is annoying, if easy to cull, as it’s simply a matter of age. But as the clients are in the financial services industry, everything has to be shredded, which is a PITA and time consuming.

My coaching client files are kept (for ever) in a separate secure cabinet, but the related potentially useful material takes up space. It tends to reside in a big pile on one end of my desk until I make time to read and review its usefulness, before making the time to scan and store it online (usually when it starts toppling over).

I have shed loads of research material relating to my writing. Much of it is connected with my co-written novel, as it’s a historical piece. As a reader I cannot abide inaccuracies, so clearly I researched the death out of everything! My co-writer and I are planning to write a series, so the information does need to be kept until we finish, as my memory isn’t good enough to rely on for that long. I did originally just keep pages of links, but many of them were removed or moved, so I had to start again. I could scan and keep it, but there’s a lot of it… so, for the moment, it’s more time efficient to keep it in folders.

Don’t get me wrong, I would love to have a tidy and organised desk. Indeed, when I first started to work from home, I had a smaller desk but was able to swing my chair around to spread out on my old dining table. Everything was brutally organised into folders and got put away on a shelving unit when done with. Now I’m sharing the same size home (and facilities) with Himself, so it’s a squeeze… but it wouldn’t be fair not to let him have his share – even if, like the chest of drawers I handed over, it only stores clothing he has never worn in the years we’ve lived together 😉

Are you tidy – or untidy – of desk and mind? Or do you have a split personality (like me)?

© Debra Carey, 2023