I would love to have nothing on my desk but my monitors, keyboard, mouse, and tea mug. However, I am sorry to admit - I have a messy desk!

I collect sticky notes with note on them, pens and highlighters and pencils. I have unfiled papers, and papers for which there exists no file. On my bookshelf I have old Master Tax Guides that were there when I moved into the office, and which I have never used because there is a digital version. (There were those couple of days when our internet was out…)

I always have excuses about why I cannot do something with all this junk. We had a tax deadline. I don’t have the space to file them.

De-clutter one space at a time - that is the advice of Leo Baubuta, the author of the Zen Habits blog. The space I choose first is - my office. I spend most of my time there, and need the least equipment to do all the things I need to do.

At home I have all of my books, art supplies, knitting stuff, dog stuff, clothing, shoes, and whatever else is stuffed in my closet. The office should be the easiest place to begin living a clutter-free life. Goodness, I cannot even really commit to carrying this over to my personal life after success at the office, because I just don’t know what I could throw out at home!

De-cluttering my office will help me to …

• Appear more professional. (And not make people worry that their papers will get lost when they drop them off at my desk - they don't get lost! but it'll be less scary for them when it's clean.)
• Be less distracted. (Maybe. My main distraction is the internet, but if my workspace is clean, theoretically, it should help me focus.)
• Be more comfortable, less stressed. While I might create the mess, and live with it, I prefer to be in a tidy environment. In a stressful job, anything that makes my workspace more "zen" is a good thing.

Disclaimer: Keep in mind, I work with a bunch of accountants. My “messy” desk does not BEGIN to rival the messy desks of the grad students’ and professors’ offices I see when I visit my boyfriend’s research lab.

How messy/neat is your office? Do you let the mess pile up, and then clean it, or do you just never get messy? (Or maybe you never tidy it??)