How do you organize your workspace?

I don’t. It’s kind of a disaster. To me and everyone else.

I’m a teacher, and I never use my desk for anything other than stacking stuff. However, this semester, I have a student worker, and he files everything for me. I strongly recommend picking up a high school student to take care of any disorganization.

However, who was it that said “A clean desk is a sign of a deranged mind” or something like that?

Organized, I like to know where things are. Plus on those job applications people always seem to want an organized person.

I understand things by organizing them. My desk goes through stages. I’ve got a little secretary desk with all these slots and drawers built into it. Right now, there’s a pile right in the middle, but that should be gone soon.

My workspace is a workshop, not a desk. I typically have multiple projects running in parallel, each with it’s own documentation, materials and tools. I’ve experimented with different approaches to organization, including putting away all tools and materials after each use. While that does make for a much neater shop, I decided that it actually isn’t very efficient; too much time is used shuttling stuff back and forth.

Now I organize things “geographically”, with each project and all of its related materials occupying loosely defined regions of the shop. Everything is left out in the open, which gives me a constant visual reminder of current projects and their state of completion. Without those visual prompts, I’d be constantly forgetting jobs.

My system can easily devolve into chaos, and I have to be careful not to let that happen. When I find myself turning in circles to locate this tool or that spec sheet, I know it’s time to pause and herd things back into their zones.

My system isn’t pretty, but then I operate largely out of public view and I don’t share this space with anyone else, so what matters is that it works for me.

My desk is organized, but not neat. As the song goes, everything in its right place. But I might just toss it in that place as opposed to, say, lining up my pens by color.

workshop. organized? surely you jest, kind sir, surely you jest.

My desk slowly builds up an accretia of papers, books, and bread crumbs. Every few months, I fly into a frenzy where I file everything. Last time, due to being mentally ill, my desk went for more than a year without receiving the clean-up treatment. It was interesting. I saw the office of another bipolar person, and it looked exactly like mine, only more so. When you have a million ideas, you can’t keep track of any of them, and you end up accomplishing very little.

I haven’t seen my desk in years! But I still know (just about) where everything is that I might need on it.

Organize? What’s that?

As long as it’s on my desktop computer I know where it is, even if the harddrive fails (even then I know where it is, I just can’t get to it). Otherwise, it’s in here somewhere.

I have even been known to misplace my laptop, hence the big, bulky desktop lives on.

I shove it off onto the floor. :)

HAHAHA.

…piles.

I have everything divided into 3 sections:
1. Do.
2. Do tomorrow.
3. Ignore and hope it goes away.

What is this ‘organization’ you speak of? I have a great big old oak desk. At the moment, only the area directly in front of my keyboard is clear of clutter. And only because I rest my arms there! It’s a freakin’ disaster.

S’ok.
Organization is relative.
Organization is futile.
I’ve used them both.