Even after you work hard to get your home or office organized, you have the challenge of keeping it organized. At home that can be accomplished by doing a daily walk through every evening. At the office, the secret is to clean off your desk every evening before you leave.
At home you will need a large basket for every member of your home, preferably in a different color for each person who lives in the house. Every evening at an appointed time, go from room to room and put anything that does not belong in that room in the basket.
That should take about five minutes. Next, take about fifteen minutes to empty the basket and put everything where it belongs. Using this method, you never have to deal with more than one day’s clutter.
At work you can follow a similar process. Every evening before you leave the office, replace any files that you have had out during the day. File any loose papers under general headings such as, “Action,” “Read” or “To Be Filed.” Because you only have one day’s worth of papers and files to sort, you should be able to do this in about fifteen minutes. The reward is coming in the next morning to a clean desk!
