Simple Productivity Task of The Day: Remove One Thing From Your Desk

Today’s tip is deceptively simple: remove one unnecessary thing from your desk.

Do this: look at your work area and pick one thing, just one thing, that doesn’t belong there, isn’t helping you with your work, and has just been taking up space. Pick up this one thing and find a place for it – store it, throw it away, but get it off your desk.

What not to do: let this be an excuse to procrastinate and clean your whole work area, office, house, etc. Just one thing for today, please!

If you wish, you can repeat this task tomorrow, but for today, take one thing that doesn’t belong, put it away, and declare momentary triumph.

My example: I took the package of blank CDs that were sitting on my desk for weeks and put them away in my cabinet on the other side of my desk. Total time for task: 30 seconds. I feel better!

What did you remove from your desk or work area?

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 22nd, 2010 at 8:00 am and is filed under GTD, Simple Productivity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

8 Responses to “Simple Productivity Task of The Day: Remove One Thing From Your Desk”

  1. Richard says:
    April 22, 2010 at 9:00 am

    Some letters I have to pass on to the IT group. Now if only I could get rid of this PC in my cubicle and replace it with an iMac… 😉 Fortunately, I have one at home.

    Reply
  2. Mari says:
    April 23, 2010 at 12:10 am

    However Sisyphean, I paid and filed this week’s pile of receipts and invoices. #GTD

    Reply
  3. Wendy says:
    April 23, 2010 at 1:06 am

    My bank statement that was just sitting there next to my laptop. Filed it away. Done!

    It’s funny how one piece of paper was causing me grief.

    Reply
    • Randy Murray says:
      April 23, 2010 at 7:13 am

      Good for you. Little things can really clog up the works. Today I shelved a notebook that’s sat to my left for weeks for no good reason. Just clearing one little thing does wonders for my attitude.

      Thanks!

      Randy

      Reply
  4. uberVU - social comments says:
    April 23, 2010 at 5:03 am

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

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  5. Productivity, Motivation, and Personal Development Links - 25th April 2010 - DIGTD - Making You More Productive says:
    April 25, 2010 at 4:28 pm

    […] second link is a link to an article titled Simple Productivity Task of The Day: Remove One Thing From Your Desk. Nice little post with a very simple one step productivity tip to help you improve your […]

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  6. Sophia Williams says:
    May 28, 2010 at 7:04 am

    Yay! I cleared up a wodge of A4 paper that has been in my way for almost a month - cramping my productivity style! Now ‘Think Productive’ can really get thing done :)

    Reply

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