Is your desktop so frequently cluttered with icons and folders that its hard to find room for new files or projects? Do you wish that your desktop was more organized or that you had more room to breathe? This posting explores some aspects of what a cluttered desktop means. It argues that it is important to have a clean, organized desktop at least some of the time, and suggests a methodology of keeping your desktop organized.
Having a cluttered desktop can mean many different things. Over the years I have observed the desktops of people that I knew well; bosses, co-workers, friends, and of course my own (frequently very cluttered) desktop, and have come to the conclusion that there are both positive and negative interpretations, as follows:
- [The Positive take] A cluttered desktop can mean that you’re in “flow”: i.e. in that zone of enjoyable mental concentration described by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. This is what you experience when working on something that you find engaging and you’re hitting your stride. I typically experience this the night before a project deadline, wherein not just my desktop but my physical desk might look like a war zone, with my desktop being literally taken over by the files I am using for my project. However, this is mostly enjoyable and I do not feel cluttered or overwhelmed.
- [The negative take] A cluttered desktop can mean that you’re over stretched and over worked: in which case, you should press on the brakes as soon as you can. Items left on the desktop are often deferred decisions (“I will figure out what to do with this later, so I will leave it on the desktop that it is within sight and I do not forget it”). What makes things worse is that many items that are left for a long time are likely to be resolved on their own; many will simply become outdated and irrelevant; in the meanwhile, the icons linger on and on, occupying space and competing with more important things for your visual attention.
A desktop cleaning methodology:
If your desktop is cluttered because you are actually producing and in flow (the ‘positive take’ above), then you’re in a good place, keep focusing on your work. Once your project is done you can deal with the artifacts on your desktop.
Otherwise, if the clutter is endemic and counter-productive, do the following.
- Make an appointment with yourself: once a week at the end of the working day, give yourself a half an hour to organize your desktop (what does an ‘organize desktop’ mean? read on).
- Take the appointment seriously. It has to be at the END of the last day of the current week, not at the beginning of the first day of the next. This will bring ‘closure’ to your week and will actually raise a lot of issues that you may have forgotten about or that you need to deal with. You will have a much better and productive next week as well, since your subconscious mind will have had time to digest and sort though those issues; you will feel like you are starting a new week, as opposed to reliving the old one.
- When sorting your icons, do ALL THREE actions mentioned in the ‘how to organize your desktop’ section below: which is to say do some of all of the following (1) organize your icons into groups or piles, (2) move some icons into folders, and (3) delete some icons.
- That’s it!
How to organize your desktop:
There are THREE actions that you can take to organize a desktop, as follows:
- Sorting your icons into various piles or groups on the desktop. This is what most of us do by default, each pile or group being relegated to an area of the screen. This is remarkably effective and easy to do, and does not involve making too many decisions.
- Sorting your icons into various folders: involves making some decisions about whether you can afford to stash them out of sight. But take heart; though icons stored in folders are no longer visible, don’t worry too much about the risk of forgetting about them altogether; chances are you are actively filtering them out of attention anyway AND suffering a cluttered environment at the same time. Go ahead and do it; sort your icons into folders. However, make sure that not all of your folders end up on the desktop; some files belong in folders that exist elsewhere on you hard drive.
- Deleting icons: deleting is cathartic and feels good. Some icons need to be deleted. Delete a handful every time you organize your desktop.
Freeware tools to help organize your desktop:
The BEHAVIOR described above are more important than any organizational tools you might use. But using tools is fun, value-added (hopefully) and can sometimes be a trigger or aide in making the icon organizing behavior happen.
If tools are what you are after then check out my recent article entitled “Ten free tools to better organize your desktop icons”, where include screenshots that show the kind of result you can get with each tool. Also look for the rating that I gave each tool (at the bottom of each mini review), which can be helpful.
Do you have any thoughts or strategies that relate to organizing desktop icons? Please share them in the comments section below.
Launchy ftw.
If a cluttered desktop implies a cluttered mind, what does an empty desktop imply?
An oldie, but still funny.
“The BEHAVIOR described above are more important than any organizational tools you might use.”
Attack the root of the problem. That’s all.
FreewareRules
I have always counseled clients to pretty much keep the desktop empty… of everything except maybe the recycle bin… maybe the “Computer” and “Network” icons… but that’s about it.
It’s an easy sell once you show them what a pain in the rear it is to minimize everything (even if thhey know the Windowskey-M shortcut) so that one may access the desktop to launch something. It’s far, far, far easier/faster, I show them, to always keep the desktop essentially empty, and to only access apps either from an enhanced/organized Start Button menu (or, even better yet, another little tool that I’m gonna’ talk about in a moment) because at least the Start Button (and pretty much anything on the toolbar) is “always on top,” and so can be gotten to no matter how many windows are open, and how blocked is the desktop.
The problem, of course, is that the Start Button menu, starting with Vista, is an unholy mess; hard to organize, and once you change anything in it, uninstallers can no longer find their start menu entries and so it gets all clutered-up and becomes a nightmare over time. For that reason I counsel to just leave the Start Button menu in Vista and Win7 alone; let installed and uninstalled software do with it whatever it will; and then use, instead, a little freeware tool which I now use both myself, and on all client machines: Alentum Software’s “Advanced Launcher.”
Advanced launcher is simple, basic, nothing to write home about…
…except that once one gets the hang of it (including the trick of creating shortcuts to folders so that it can launch folders, too, there eliminating the need for tools like CodeSector’s “Direct Folders” and, therefore, make Advanced Launcher into not only a program launcher, but also a folders launcher), it’s darned potent! And, most importantly, one can replicate the far better XP/NT-style Start Button menuing system, where sub-folders and whatnot can be created. It’s REALLY nice. I, personally, just dock Advanced launcher’s little mini-toolbar-looking thingy right above (and I mean IMMEIDATELY above, so that it’s kinda’ touching) the Start Button. Then I tell it to always be on top, too, just like the task bar so that no matter what, I can always get to it. It can also be docked to any edge, so it appears if you hover the mouse near it, which some people prefer, but I like it the way I do it… but that’s just me.
Then, on the desktop, I add a folder called “Removed from Desktop” and place it immediately above the Recycle Bin, in the lower-leftmost corner of the desktop, above the Start Button. And, thereafter, anything which gets installed or by some other means finds its way onto my desktop, I just drag it into the “Removed from Desktop” folder so that if I evern DID need to get at it, it would be there. At the same time, I then take a moment to add a folder for the new software in my Advanced Launcher menuing system, under the appropriate top-level folder.
I’ve tried all manner of desktop organizers, and “fence” type programs, etc., and this method really is best. I tend to have a wide-open, empty desktop (except, again, maybe the “Computer” and “Network” icons, ala XP/NT days; and, of course, the recycle bin and my little “Removed from Desktop” folder… and that’s it); and one of the upsides of that is that I can better enjoy some fancy wallpaper that I’ve got loaded; or, even better, a “live” type wallpaper which actually displays a workingj web page… I’ve been toying with that lately and while I don’t really LIKE it, per se, it doesn’t completely suck, either…
…and, in any case, it would not be possible if the desktop were all cluttered-up with icons!
Hope that helps!
____________________________________
Gregg L. DesElms
Napa, California USA
gregg at greggdeselms dot com
ADDENDUM: By the way, Samer, did you know that for me, at least, whenever I post here using Chrome, it just sits there, saying that it’s posting, with the little spinner thingy, but eventually, after a long pause, goes to a page which tells me that it couldn’t make the posting; that it failed, and that the page can no longer be accessed…
…but then if I hit the “back” button, and do a hard refresh of the page (by holding down the Ctrl key while clicking on the browser’s “refresh” button), voila!, my post is there despite the error message.
At first I thought it was just intermittent, but as I think about it, it’s happening pretty much 100% of the time with my posts on your site; even AFTER I did a complete REVO UNINSTALLER type uninstall of Chrome, and removal of all its temp/history and cookie files, before installing the most recent major version number update. It exhibited the error both before and after said installation; and I’m having trouble remembering any time when it didn’t.
Is there any chance you’re using a comment posting script that’s got a Chrome incompatibility or something? Just askin’.
_____________________________
Gregg DesElms
Napa, California USA
gregg at greggdeselms dot com
2nd (and last… I promise) ADDENDUM: And, of course, wouldn’t you know, my luck, that the last posting, I just made, in which I described the symptom, posted perfectly fine (still a long delay, but no error this time). What luck, eh? Right after I said it’s happening 100% of the time. Go figure.
Maybe it has something to do with browser session; maybe the first posting in a browser session fails, but all others in that session work. Since I normally only post once on your site per browser session, it would have taken me something like what I’m doing here, today, to notice the difference. Hmm. I wonder if that’s it.
Also, I noticed that after the immediately-above posting, in which I described the symptom, your page finally properly defaulted my info into the “name” and “email” and “website” fields… something it hadn’t done after my first posting on this page.
[sigh] Now if we could just get the page to default the answer to the anti-spam math question, we’d REALLY be onto something, here, eh? [grin]
______________________________
Gregg L. DesElms
Napa, California USA
gregg at greggdeselms dot com
@ Gregg: I’ve been looking at Advanced Launcher for a possible writeup, thanks for the tip.
One thing I want to say, though, is that the clutter in the desktop I experience usually comes from FILES, folders, and installers that I am working with or downloaded. It is not an issue of shortcuts or launching programs.
In fact, I recommend that all program shortcuts be removed from the desktop to be replaced by an indexing ‘search box’ type launcher such as Find and Run Robot (my favorite) or Launchy.
As to comments on this blog, yes the comment posting process does result in an error 4 out of 5 times, but the comment is actually submitted. This is an error that I am somehow not able to fix, and it has nothing to do with your browser or your computer. It seems to borne out of the combination of the WordPress W3 Caching plugin, Rackspace cloud hosting, and the WordPress theme that I am using.
Use disable icon on the desktop and use a launcher or dock instead. I help you find your favourite apps faster and it also helps you find files.
If you’re using, everything is definitely the one you need. I personally use it as my searcher and launcher.
Wonderful post Samer , Thank you .
Since after reading on all those wise solution , and from within the Freeware genius site you come forward and tell us : Guys – there’s no real substitution for the human factor , at the end of your working day , its up to you to clean up your mess ….
I use this opp. to thank Benjamin Tietjens for the well written posts he publish here ( and to give the proper credit re. my previous mistake on the author of “Is Android a stolen product?” ) we all learn from your recommendations
Well done !
Elioz