Set Up Your Desk for Decision

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Given that you’ve gotten you desk under control, now go a step further. Set up your office to enable you to focus on the task at hand, and ignore other less important matters. This might involve neatly arranging papers, file folders, reports and other items, while working at a clear desk, with only the issue hand in front of you.

Remember that simply having too much in your visual field can be an impediment to beginning a task.

When you have only a single project or task at hand, your odds of maintaining clarity and focus increase dramatically. This is even truer if you’re not in your own office or cubicle but at a conference table or at some other location at which you only have the project materials at hand.

Did you see the movie Top Gun, in which Tom Cruise plays a Navy fighter pilot? (“Your ego is writing checks that your body can’t cash.”) Among his many responsibilities in flying some of the nation’s most expensive aircraft is landing those jets safely on aircraft carrier decks.

Months after seeing the movie, I read an article in Smithsonian magazine about how aircraft carrier decks are to be completely clean and clear before a plane lands. “All hands on deck” on an aircraft carrier means that everyone, even senior officers, needs to pick up a push broom and sweep the deck clear. The goal is to leave nothing on the surface of the deck, not even a paper clip, in order to ensure a successful landing. If there is debris on the deck as a plane approaches, or an earlier plane has not left the landing strip, the approaching plane is likely to crash.

Your desk is like the deck of an aircraft carrier. If you take the next pile of stuff you receive and park it in the corner of your desk with the notion that an organizing fairy will leave a nice, neat file under your pillow in the morning, good luck! Nobody’s coming to help you manage your desk. Each new item you pile on will figuratively crash in the smoldering ruins if the accumulations in progress.

Get into the habit of managing your desktop as if it’s important in enhancing your productivity – because it is. Don’t let glut put you in a rut. Cut through the clutter like hot knife through butter. If you only have whatever you’re working on in front of you, and the rest of your desk is clear, you’re bound to have more energy, focus, and direction. You’re in a far better position to take action. The top executives of major corporations know this; that’s why their desks remain clear and uncluttered.



Regards,



Timben