I’ve turned one of the most popular series on this blog into an ebook, which I’m releasing today. The book is How to Set Up Your Desk: A Guide to Fixing a (Surprisingly) Overlooked Productivity Problem, and it’s available for your Kindle.

I believe that being productive starts with your worldview — you need to know your purpose and why it’s important to be productive at all. But once we have that worldview in place, it is crucial to also understand and utilize the best strategies and tactics we can find and develop.

The question of how to set up our desks is an area that affects all of us consistently, yet has received almost no good treatment. The common idea seems to be “just do what works for you.” But far from creating greater freedom, this notion actually creates inefficiency and annoyance. While it is true that we each have our own personal style, it is also true that there are certain fundamental principles applicable to everyone that make for an effective desk setup. If you don’t understand these principles, you will have an annoying, less effective workspace.

In other words, it is possible to have a smooth-running, efficient desk setup that will make make your desk setup both more efficient and more enjoyable to use. And this will increase your productivity, since when we like the way we have things set up, we not only use them more efficiently but are also inclined toward more productive behaviors.

This ebook shows you how to do that with your desk. It shows you how to get it set up right — in a way that serves you and is not annoying, and is based on sound principles that make sense and that you can apply to any situation.

Here are three endorsements:

“Matt Perman has served me so well in applying a Steve Jobs-like approach to my workflow: simple, intuitive, elegant, and efficient. I’ve followed most of his advice about setting up my desk (as well as processing my email), and it works beautifully.”

—Andy Naselli, Assistant Professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology at Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis; Research Manager for D. A. Carson; Administrator of the theological journal Themelios

“Your desk is probably standing in the way of your effectiveness at work. So are your email, office supplies, and task management systems (or lack thereof). Matt Perman is the master of all of these areas. His well-researched and documented methodologies have revolutionized the effectiveness with which I live out my callings in life.”

—Matt Heerema, Pastor of Stonebrook Community Church; Director of Mere Design Agency

“Sitting here in my office, I am able to look around at a well-ordered and organized system thanks to Matt Perman. This book drastically helped me with my physical workspace, and the results have been tremendous. I will now use this book for all new staff in our department.”

—Chris Misiano, Senior Director of Campus Recreation, Liberty University

This would be a good book for readers of What’s Best Next who want to go deeper on the tactical side, but you don’t have to have read What’s Best Next to benefit from this book. It will help anyone, anywhere, who is interested in implementing, as David Allen has said, “smooth running, silent systems” for greater productivity.

Lifehacker has a workspace Flickr group where you can post a picture of your workspace and look at what other people have done. It’s a great place to see what other people do.

If you post your own photo, they also add: “Include some details about your setup and why it works for you, and you just might see it featured on the front page of Lifehacker.”

Post 8 in the series: How to Set Up Your Desk

Having discussed how to set up your desk, now it is time to close this series by looking at the rest of the room.

(FYI: Originally this was the third post in the series because I thought it would be helpful to see the whole context of the room in general before discussing the desk in particular. But that seemed to interrupt the flow of the posts. So this post is now at the end to close out the series.)

The Components of An Office/Workspace
There are six components of your broader work area:

1. The desk, of course
2. Reference area
3. Storage area
4. Project shelf
5. Meeting area
6. Brainstorming area
7. Lounge area (maybe)

In other words, you need to have a place to actually do your work (the desk), a place to keep reference materials, a place to keep extra supplies and equipment, a place to meet with visitors and, perhaps, a place to take a break.

[Read more…]

Post 7 in the series: How to Set Up Your Desk

For your desk drawers, I recommend having two of the three-drawer units. These three-drawer units have two normal drawers on top and then a larger file drawer on bottom. Here’s an example:

You can get by with just one if you need to, but I recommend two. One goes on your right and the other goes on your left.

Here’s how to set them up.

[Read more…]

Post 6 in the series: How to Set Up Your Desk

When it comes to your desktop, there are three things to know: what items to have on your desktop, how to arrange them, and how to use your desktop.

What Goes on Your Desktop
As I’ve mentioned before, the main principle here is to minimize the number of items you keep on your desk. Simplicity rules the day here. This will make your desk feel less cluttered and create a smoother workflow. It also just plain looks better.

The best way to keep things on your desktop to a minimum is to only give something a permanent place on your desktop if you use it more than once a day. Even then, if it is easy to access that item via a drawer, it should probably go in a drawer.

This would mean, for example, that unless you really love your stapler, it should go in a drawer. Likewise, no desk organizer-things. And pen and pencil cups are unnecessary. If you really like them they can work fine, but really it works great to have just one pen and one (mechanical) pencil on your desk, laying flat, and the rest in drawers.

The main things you need to have on your desktop are:

1. External monitor (if you connect your laptop to it to provide a second screen)
2. Mouse and keyboard
3. Laptop stand (so that it will be at the height of your external monitor)
4. Pad of paper
5. Pen and pencil (lying flat, rather than in a pencil cup)
6. Inbox (this kind works well)

You might also find it useful to have:

1. Docking unit for your iPhone or iPod (if you have one)
2. Desk lamp (if needed)
3. Telephone (land line; this would be a must at work, but at home I see it as optional if you primarily use your cell)
4. Printer (if you have room for one without cluttering your desk)
5. Decorations (just don’t overdo it; if you have an actual office, pictures can also go on shelves instead of the desk)
6. Any other items necessary to your specific situation (but keep it to a minimum!). For example, I have my wireless router and modem behind my monitor, as they don’t get in the way back there and this also gives me easy access to them when I have a problem. (However, one of these days I will probably move them to another room to get them out of here and simplify a bit more.)

Beyond that, be careful. It’s easy to justify adding things, but the end result can easily be a cluttered desk that saps your energy.

Here are a few more details on some of the items mentioned above.

First, I recommend hooking up your laptop to an external monitor because it allows you to work on a bigger screen. Your laptop screen will also become a second monitor, thus resulting in a good increase in screen real estate. This is important because the best way to increase white collar productivity is to increase screen size. (So get the biggest possible monitor that you can.)

Second, it also makes sense to have a laptop stand so that your laptop will be elevated to the height of your screen. Many of these also provide additional USB ports.

Third, a docking unit for your iPhone makes sense because it saves time by preventing you from having to pull out a pull out the cord each time you want to sync your iPhone.

Fourth, it can save a lot of time to have a basic printer right at your desk so you don’t have to walk to one of the main printers at your work every time that you print something. On the other hand, it takes up space at your desk and you might not print enough to make it worthwhile.

How to Arrange Things on Your Desktop
I find that it works best to place my monitor in front of me (obviously) and then everything else on the left side. This stems from a few factors.

First, the inbox goes on the left side because of the “left to right” workflow pattern. (New stuff goes on the left, you deal with it in front of you, and outgoing stuff goes on the right.)

Second, the phone belongs on the opposite of your preferred side (the left side, if you are right handed) because that leaves your preferred hand available to dial or jott down any notes. You also don’t have the cord going across your desk when you use it. (If you are left-handed, then the left side won’t provide these benefits, but it will still sync with the fact that everything else is on that side.)

Third, having the inbox on the left side implies that the paper pad would also be on the left side, since any notes you create would be new input and thus would go into your inbox if you don’t handle them right away. And since the paper pads are on the left side, it makes sense to put the pen and (mechanical) pencil right beside them.

And as long as those items are on the left side, it makes sense to put everything else on the left side. This also leaves your right side free, which is important because it is the area you would look over when meeting with people.

So, to summarize, everything goes on the left side and the right side remains open. As a corollary to this, then, position your desk to make the visitor area across the right side of your desk (outlined in the previous post).

The sequence of my items goes like this: My monitor is right in front of me. Right beneath it is my iPhone dock, and right in front of it are my keyboard and mouse. Behind the monitor are my router and modem. To the left of my monitor is my laptop stand and laptop. To the left of that is my pad of paper, pen, and pencil (when not in use). At work, to the left of that is my phone. At home I don’t keep a phone at my desk, so to the left of the paper pad is my inbox (at work the inbox then goes just to the left of the phone).

At work, to the left of my inbox at work are some pictures of my family. Then, far to the left of that across that portion of the U is my printer.

At home to the left of my inbox is a desk lamp and to the left of that is my printer. Here’s my home setup (which you’ve seen a lot by now):

And here’s my work setup (which you’ve also seen a lot by now):

How to Use Your Desktop

I mentioned in the second post in this series that everything at your desk falls into two categories: permanent stuff and transient stuff. Permanent stuff includes four things: equipment, supplies, decoration, and reference (which actually goes in drawers and on shelves, rather than on the desktop). Transient stuff includes three things: input to be processed, action reminders, and support material.

The thing to notice is that all work falls into the transient category.

In other words, you don’t store work on your desk. Your desktop is for doing your work, not for storing your work.

What goes on your desktop permanently is the equipment used for doing your work. Any work items flow across your desk, but should not stay long. Things that you need to keep around go into files, not piles on the desktop.

With this in mind, here’s a rundown on the process I recommend for how to use your desk.

The workflow goes from left to right. When new input comes, it goes into your inbox on the left. When it’s time to process those items, handle the items in the middle, right in front of you. Any piles that need to be taken somewhere else go on the right side.

If you have an L-shaped or U-shaped desk, you can use the “L” part of the desktop for these out piles. If you have a rectangular setup, you can still do things this way by just using the floor. If you have a parallel arrangement you can put them on the desktop behind you.

If you need to group things into piles so that you can work on them in batches (things to read, notes to enter onto your action lists, etc.), it tends to work best to create those piles on the left side. As I’ve discussed before, it can be efficient to create piles. You just need to work to the end of those piles right away, rather than keeping them around.

Processing your inbox, of course, is just one type of work and hopefully it doesn’t take up too much time. When you’re doing other work the left and right sides work well for spreading out reference material and other support items.

There isn’t any specific system to give with that — you just put things wherever they are most helpful to you at the moment. The system is that you kept your desk clear so that it is available in this way when you are working on things. And so when you are done or at a point where you won’t be able to get back to the project for a while, but the reference materials away and the support items back into files, so that the desktop remains clear for whatever is next.

Posts in This Series

1. How to Set Up Your Desk: An Introduction
2. How to Set Up Your Desk: Basic Principles
3. Excursus: Against Desk Hotels
4. The Four Ways to Configure a Desk
5. Where to Put Your Desk
6. What to Put on Your Desktop and How to Use It
7. What to Put in Your Desk Drawers and How to Use Them
8. The Rest of the Room: How to Set Up Your Office

Post 5 in the series: How to Set Up Your Desk

The place where you put your desk depends upon the type of desk configuration you have and the structure of the room/work area. The nature of your work area can place significant limitations on you that can’t fully be worked around. But I’ll present the ideal, and then suggest some work arounds.

The Principles

There are three main principles here.

1. Don’t Make Your Desk Face the Wall
This will likely make you feel boxed in.

2. Don’t Have Your Back to the Door/Entrance
Having your back to the door is also to be avoided, because as Organizing for Dummies points out so well, “many a worker can vouch that this placement … makes you susceptible to scares when people walk up behind you” (190). This is called “cubicle paranoia.”

This being susceptible to scares is also called “cubicle paranoia.”

Also, having your back to the door is less welcoming.

3. If Possible, Make Your Desk Face Perpendicular to the Door/Entrance
This gives the right combination of concentration and control. You can see the door and aren’t walled up, but aren’t directly facing the door or entrance so as to be distracted every time someone walks by.

This isn’t always possible, however. Facing the entrance directly, then, is a close second. Some people might prefer this most of all. The most important thing is not to face the wall or away from the door.

Applying the Principles

Now, with an L-shaped or U-shaped desk, obviously part of the desk is going to have to be against the wall. The point is that the place where you sit should not face the wall or away from the entrance.

I’ve found that the best way to make this work is to place my monitor in the corner of the “L” shape of my desk. This maximize the use of space, since typically that is the deepest part of the desk and thus accommodates the monitor best, and allows me to face the entrance as much as possible. Here’s an example from my office at home:

Now, I mentioned in my previous post the “left to right” workflow pattern. This affects your placement very much if you use the L-shaped or U-shaped configurations. For your inbox and all of your equipment goes on your left side. The right side is kept open so that you can greet visitors and so that if they sit down there isn’t stuff in the way across the desktop.

For example, if you have a room like the following and an L-shaped configuration, do this:

But not this:

Exceptions
Sometimes, the layout of the room makes it impossible to implement the above principles completely.

In those cases, do the best you can. If you have a cubicle, for example, you may just have to put up with having your back to the entrance of your work area because that’s simply how most cubicles are designed. If that’s the way it has to be, that’s fine.

If you are in an office, doors and windows can often be in weird places that limit your options.

But the point is, don’t face the wall or away from the entrance if you don’t have to. Be intentional about your office layout. Don’t have your back to the door just because it seemed initially like the easiest way to set things up.

Posts in This Series

1. How to Set Up Your Desk: An Introduction
2. How to Set Up Your Desk: Basic Principles
3. Excursus: Against Desk Hotels
4. The Four Ways to Configure a Desk
5. Where to Put Your Desk
6. What to Put on Your Desktop and How to Use It
7. What to Put in Your Desk Drawers and How to Use Them
8. The Rest of the Room: How to Set Up Your Office

Post 4 in the series: How to Set Up Your Desk

There are four different ways to configure a desk: rectangular, parallel, L-shaped, and U-shaped. The size of the room and other factors may not leave all of these options open to you, but understanding these possibilities helps you know how to make the best use of your space.

Rectangular
The rectangular configuration consists of just a standard desk. It’s just a rectangle with no other components, like this:

A rectangular configuration gives you less workspace, but is fine if you have a small area to work with or prefer to keep your desk area to a minimum.

A rectangular desk is a good option. But I used to fall into the error of thinking it was the only option. So even though I found it a bit cramped, I used this kind of desk at home for the longest time simply because whenever I needed to buy a desk, this is what I automatically thought of. It was helpful to realize eventually that, for those who would like a bit more workspace, there are some other ways to do things.

Parallel

With the parallel configuration, you add another rectangular unit behind you to provide additional workspace. Here is an example:

L-Shaped
An L-shaped configuration also adds another desktop unit, but to the side rather than the back. My desk at home is L-shaped:

You can create this configuration by putting together two rectangular desk unit or a rectangular unit and a bookshelf or credenza-type-thing. Or you can purchase an L-shaped unit at IKEA or another such place. I prefer the latter option, because then your desk is a single unit.

A lot of cubicles provide people with L-shaped desks. So there’s at least one thing that cubicles have going for them.

U-Shaped
The U-shaped configuration is really an L-shaped configuration with another component added on to the other side of the L:

You can also create a U-shape by putting together independent units or by purchasing a U-shaped desk.

I find the L-shaped provides the best workflow pattern, which I’ll describe in the post on how to use your desktop. The U-shaped configuration lets you do everything that the L-shaped does, and then adds on a few bonuses. You can still do the same workflow pattern with the rectangular and parallel configurations, but you have to make a few modifications. I’ll cover this in the post on how to use your desktop.

Integrating the Drawer Units
No matter what your configuration, there are actually two components that you need to have: the desk itself, and the drawer unit(s).

Many desk units come with the drawers built in. I don’t regard that as an advantage, typically, because it seems that a lot of desks are not made with an understanding of how to use a desk effectively. Therefore, you often end up stuck with the wrong kind of drawers or the drawers are not in the most effective locations.

So whenever possible, I recommend getting a desk without built-in drawers and then buying a separate drawer unit (or two) that you put under the desk. This provides you with the most flexibility, especially if you change your mind later on about where you want the drawers to be.

For the drawer unit, I recommend getting a three-drawer unit. These units have two regular drawers on top and then a file drawer beneath.

There are variations on this. For example, my drawer unit at home is a bit odd. There is only one regular drawer at the top, but the file drawer actually contains within it two additional regular drawers, with space for files beneath:

This requires the extra step of having to open two drawers every time that I want to access one of the lower regular drawers (the main file drawer and then the regular drawer within), but on the positive side it gives me three regular drawers plus the file drawer.

I will talk more about how to use the drawer units in the upcoming post on that. Some general guidelines are that if you only have one drawer unit, I would put it on your preferred-hand side under the desk. So if you have a rectangle or parallel desk and are right-handed, it would go right under the right side of the desk. With an L-shaped or U-shaped unit, the unit would go under the L on the right side. The second unit would then go on the other side. Here’s an example that shows this two-unit setup:

One Last Thing
As I mentioned in the first post, it is hard to find anything in the productivity literature on how to set up your desk. Among those discussions that do exist, many make a distinction between the desk and computer workstation.

I do not make that distinction. I find it kind of funny, actually.

A lot of those discussions seem to have been from a long time ago, perhaps when using a computer during your workday was rare. But it still persists in some forms, because if you go to IKEA’s website even today, they make a distinction between “desks” and “computer workstations.”

This is a misguided distinction, in my opinion. These days, there is not one part of your desk where you do “paperwork” and a different place where you do “computer work.” There is still some actual stuff to do with paper, but I find this almost always involves the simultaneous use of the computer. If you try to process “paperwork” away from your computer, you’ll find yourself always going over to your computer in the midst of it.

Likewise, when using your computer, you often use some real paper at the same time — maybe because you printed an article that was easier to refer to in print or because you find it easiest to capture a few action points in a capture journal rather than electronically.

So I have my monitor right in front of me, and deal with both paper and electronic stuff together, right there (sometimes creating temporary piles to my left or right, as I’ve mentioned before and will describe later).

Everyone knows this. But the discussions of desk setup that do exist need to be updated to reflect this, and some desk manufacturers and stores need to integrate this more fully into their thinking as well.

Beyond that, the interesting observation here, in my opinion, is this: It’s not that we’ve seen the end of paper, although it has decreased. It’s that now when we do handle paper, there is usually an electronic component to it as well, whether that means checking out a website or adding something to a to-do list because of what you came across in the (physical) mail.

So we don’t have the end of paper, but we do have the end of dealing with paper alone. The most effective desk setup recognizes this, and is designed for the integrated utilization of paper-based and electronic-based workflow.

Posts in This Series

1. How to Set Up Your Desk: An Introduction
2. How to Set Up Your Desk: Basic Principles
3. Excursus: Against Desk Hotels
4. The Four Ways to Configure a Desk
5. Where to Put Your Desk
6. What to Put on Your Desktop and How to Use It
7. What to Put in Your Desk Drawers and How to Use Them
8. The Rest of the Room: How to Set Up Your Office

Post 3 in the series: How to Set Up Your Desk

As we move forward in this series towards discussing where the best place to put your desk is, it’s worth acknowledging explicitly the need to have a permanently fixed “home base.” Off and on there have been movements against this in some companies, towards the concept of “hoteling.”

David Allen has some good words on this, which also serve to show the value of having a specific and primary spot where you do your work:

Some organizations are interested in the concept of ‘hoteling’–that is, having people create totally self-contained and mobile workstation capabilities so they can ‘plug in’ anywhere in the company, at any time, and work from there.

I have my doubts about how well that concept will work in practice. A friend who was involved in setting up an ‘office of the future’ model in Washington, D.C., for the U.S. government, claimed that hoteling tended to fall apart because of the ‘Mine!’ factor–people wanted their own stuff.

I suggest there’s a deeper reason for the failure: there needs to be zero resistance at the less-than-conscious level for us to use the systems we have. Having to continually reinvent our in-basket, our filing system, and how and where we process our stuff can only be a source of incessant distraction.

You can work virtually everywhere if you have a clean, compact system and know how to process your stuff rapidly and portably. But you’ll still need a ‘home base’ with a well-grooved set of tools and sufficient space for all the reference and support material that you’ll want somewhere close at hand when you ‘land.’ (Getting Things Done, 91)

Posts in This Series

1. How to Set Up Your Desk: An Introduction
2. How to Set Up Your Desk: Basic Principles
3. Excursus: Against Desk Hotels
4. The Four Ways to Configure a Desk
5. Where to Put Your Desk
6. What to Put on Your Desktop and How to Use It
7. What to Put in Your Desk Drawers and How to Use Them
8. The Rest of the Room: How to Set Up Your Office

Post 2 in the series: How to Set Up Your Desk

Before getting into the specifics of where to put your desk, how to organize and use your desktop and drawers most effectively, and how to set up the rest of your room/cubicle/work area, it is important to have some basic principles before us.

1. Your desk should be like a cockpit

This is perhaps the guiding principle here. You want your desk to be an effective, efficient “home base” for dealing with stuff and executing work. As such, it needs to be lean and function with ease. You want to be able to move quickly and with minimal drag.

This implies that you should have fingertip access to the things that you use and do most often, and enough surface area to do your work and create (temporary!) groupings as needed on the desktop (which you clear away when done — more on that later).

Clear space is good. Do not aim to occupy every fragment of space. A desk is for working, not storing stuff. So be a minimalist when it comes to what you have on your desk permanently.

This leaves room to spread things out when you are actually working and just plain gives room to breathe, which keeps your thinking from getting all walled up.

2. Everything at your desk falls into just a few categories

I covered the basics of how to understand the stuff at your desk in my second post on productivity tools and in my notes on workspace organization. But I did that mostly in anticipation of this series, so here’s the gist in a bit more detail.

Basically, if you have a context for understanding the types of stuff at your desk, you will be more likely to use it better and design your work area better. I think that this is more effective than just “tips on how to keep your desk clear.” The tips often don’t go to the core of the issue; they are just tips. The real solution is understanding.

There are two main categories of stuff at your desk: permanent stuff and temporary stuff.

Permanent stuff breaks down into four categories: equipment, supplies, decoration, and reference. Temporary stuff breaks down into: input to be processed, action reminders, and support materials.

We’ll cover permanent stuff first.

Equipment
Examples of equipment would be your computer monitor, keyboard, mouse, telephone, and in-box. As I’ll cover in the post on organizing your desktop, that’s about all the equipment you should have on your desk.

Things like staplers, label makers, and tape dispensers are also equipment, but should be in drawers (which I’ll also discuss). The principle is that you only keep on your desk the equipment that you use every day.

Supplies
Examples of supplies would be paper pads, pens, pencils, paper clips, rubber bands. Some of this could actually be considered equipment (pens, probably), but the point in regard to supplies is that they are things that need to be replenished.

This means that you keep at your desk only enough to meet your needs, and you store extras in a supply room, closet, overhead bin, or something like that. This again goes back to the principle of making your desk like a cockpit. Keep what you need there, but don’t use it to store a bunch of extra stuff, because that will clutter things up and your desk will no longer be smooth and functional.

I’ll talk about the supply area and how to set it up towards the end of the series. We’ll also cover where to keep your supplies that are kept at your desk (for example: only keep one or two pens on the desk and the rest in drawers) when we talk about the desktop and desk drawers. You can also learn more about this in my post The Tools You Need to Have (and Where to Keep Them).

Decoration
If you have some things on your desk that don’t seem to be doing anything, but you like to have them around, then they probably are serving as decoration. Decoration is the third category. It’s good to have this, just keep it to a minimum or you desk will end up overly cluttered.

Empty cans of Mountain Dew do not count as decoration.

Reference
The last category of permanent stuff is reference. This doesn’t go on your desktop, but in file cabinets and on bookshelves.

Transient Stuff
So we’ve seen the four categories of permanent stuff: equipment, supplies, decoration, and reference. Transient stuff breaks into three categories: input to be processed, action reminders, and project support materials.

Input to be processed goes in your in-box. That is, it goes in a specific spot — the in-box — rather than getting scattered over the desk or whole room.

Action reminders go in your task management software or, if you are paper-based, your planner. Support material goes in files or, if it is too big to fit in a file, on a project shelf or project area away from your desktop. And obviously most of your support material these days will be electronic.

Note that you keep action reminders and support materials off of your desktop, except when you are working on them. More on that below.

Equipped with the above categories, you can look around at your desk and identify if you really need to have the stuff that you do, and if you really need to have it where you do.

If you have something that doesn’t fall into any of these categories, then it is likely the final category that I didn’t mention: junk. Examples here would be pens that no longer work and who knows what else. If you have a lot of junk, getting rid of it will open up a lot of space.

Among the stuff that you should have around, knowing what type of thing it is also helps you know whether you should keep it close by or farther away. Equipment that you use every day can stay on the desktop, otherwise it goes into drawers. Keep at hand supplies that you use, but keep them in drawers. Keep extra supplies in a supply area. Have some decoration around, but don’t overdo it. And reference stuff is good to have, but it doesn’t go on your desktop.

3. The desk is for doing work, not storing work or reminding you of work

Let’s talk a bit more about how to handle the transient stuff. I’m going to go into more detail on this in the post on organizing and managing your desktop, so I’m risking a bit of repetition here, but I think a few words need to be said here as well.

I pointed out that action reminders go on lists and support material go in files or shelves, rather than the desktop. That’s because your desk is for doing work, not storing work or reminding you of work.

In other words, don’t manage your life from stacks, as I blogged on earlier today. Manage your life from lists. So don’t create stacks of stuff to remind you of the work that you have to do. That is the biggest reason that desks become cluttered. Put what you have to do on your action lists and put the support materials in pending files or, if they are too big, a project shelf.

When you are actually working on something, then you can create piles to orchestrate your work (for example, you can see an example of this in how I process my inbox). But get to the bottom of those piles before closing up shop for the day, or, if you can’t, put them away rather than keeping them around as reminders.

This goes to one of the purposes of having a desk: to create workspace. The desktop is for the work you are doing, not for storing the work that you have to do. If you use your desktop to store your work, it will not be as functional to you for actually doing your work. And you will always have nagging mental friction around you saying “you should be doing this, but you’re not.”

Therefore, do feel free to spread out your work and create piles when you are actually doing your work. That’s one of the reasons you have a desk. But when you are done, put things away. Don’t leave them out.

(This same principle can be applied electronically, by the way, with a few variations; you can see a glimpse of how to do this in my article on email, How to Get Your Email Inbox to Zero Every Day.)

4. All of the input that comes your way is either trash, information, or action

One more word here on the specific category of transient stuff that constitutes input to be processed. The input that comes your way falls into only one of three categories:

1. Trash
2. Information
3. Action items

This makes it easier to know how to handle things. If an item is trash, toss it immediately.

If it is information, then either read it and then toss it or, if you want to keep it, read it and then file it (which brings up filing, which I will get to one of these days!). Don’t keep it on your desk. File it. File it. Don’t let clutter grow.

If it is an action item, then do it right away if it is less than two minutes. If it will take longer than two minutes, then put the action on one of your next action lists (if you don’t have any action lists, or aren’t clear on how to make the best use of them, I know that begs for a series of posts as well).

After putting the action on your list, if you still need the actual item, then put it with your support material, as discussed above, and make a note by the item on your list so you remember to bring it out when you work on that action.

In this way, you can process the new input that comes your way without resorting to turning your desk into a storage unit for stuff that you have to deal with.

5. Create work centers

Since a desk is for doing your work, you design the structure and flow of your desk to accommodate this. This is most effectively done if you think in terms of creating centers.

I’m going to talk more about how to set up these work centers are later in this series, in the post on organizing your actual desktop. But for now, I’ll point out that you create centers on your desktop, desk drawers, and file drawers.

On your desktop, the key centers will likely be phone center, computer center, capture tool center, and work center. There are also principles for best orchestrating the flow of work in your work center.

In your drawers, centers include: writing center, mailing/finance center (if needed), and stapler/filing center. In your files, the major divisions (= centers) are: pending, projects, operations, reference, and archive.

6. Use P-L-A-C-E to organize things intelligently

P-L-A-C-E, which comes from the book Organizing for Dummies (a really useful book, by the way), is a really helpful approach to organizing anything. So it comes in handy as a general approach to use when organizing your desk and office/cubicle.

I’ll talk more about how to specifically apply it when we talk later about the details of organizing your desktop and drawers. But for now, here’s the gist:

P urge. Get rid of what is unnecessary, especially pens that don’t work.

L ike with like. This means that you group like things together, just like you learned in high school English. This is really the central principle to organizing anything.

A ccess. When you have your groupings determined, you place them according to your access needs. This is why, for example, extra supplies go off in a supply closet or other out of the way place, rather than in your drawers. You don’t want stuff you don’t have to access as much getting in your way when accessing stuff you do need a lot.

C ontain. Don’t just let stuff run loose. Use drawer dividers and other types of containers when relevant.

E valuate. When you are done, step back and contemplate how you like it and make sure it works well for you. Make any adjustments.

7. Have interchangeable systems at home and work

David Allen is right when he says: “Don’t skimp on work space at home. It’s critical that you have at least a satellite home system identical to the one in your office.”

There are two key points there. First, many people are on top of things pretty well at work, but don’t apply those same principles at home. Be organized and effective both at work and at home. Don’t think you’re off the hook at home in the need to be effective (both in terms of executing efficient workflow and building solid relationships).

I like what David Allen says here on the value of setting things up well at home as well as work:

Many people I’ve worked with have been somewhat embarrassed by the degree of chaos that reigns in their homes, in contrast to their offices at work; they’ve gotten tremendous value from giving themselves permission to establish the same setup in both places. If you’re like many of them, you’ll find that a weekend spent setting up a home workstation can make a revolutionary change in your ability to organize your life. (Getting Things Done, 90).

Second, your system at home should mirror your system at work. This makes it easier, because you don’t have to learn one set of behaviors at work only to have to follow a different set of behaviors to use your desk/work area at home.

So, for example, my laptop goes at the same spot on the desk both at home and at work. My in box is in the same location. The drawers are in the same spots with similar stuff (with a few exceptions for stuff that I need to have at work that I don’t need at home, and a few accommodations to structural things that can’t be changed). And I have the same workflow pattern of left is for new stuff, right is for stuff to take somewhere, and so forth.

8. Have a mobile component

Last of all: You should not simply have a work center at home and work; you should also have a mobile dimension.

The mobile component basically consists of your briefcase with your laptop (I’ll maybe post in the future on how to set up your briefcase effectively). Here’s how David Allen puts the importance of this:

Many people lose opportunities to be productive because they’re not equipped to take advantage of the odd moments and windows of time that open up as they move from one place to another, or when they’re in off-site environments. The combination of a good processing style, the right tools, and good interconnected systems at home and at work can make traveling a highly leveraged way to get certain kinds of work done. (Getting Things Done, 90)

Now we have before us some of the primary principles governing how to set up and use your desk and general work area effectively. Now we’ll apply them specifically to where to put your desk and to organizing your desktop, drawers, and the rest of the room/cubicle.

Posts in This Series

1. How to Set Up Your Desk: An Introduction
2. How to Set Up Your Desk: Basic Principles
3. Excursus: Against Desk Hotels
4. The Four Ways to Configure a Desk
5. Where to Put Your Desk
6. What to Put on Your Desktop and How to Use It
7. What to Put in Your Desk Drawers and How to Use Them
8. The Rest of the Room: How to Set Up Your Office