The desk reset: 5 fixes that give you your desk back

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Let’s start with the most important thing: no one makes their desk messy on purpose. It happens one item at a time, and it’s very easy to overlook. But a messy desk can hurt your productivity and, at the very least, break the golden rule of organizing: everything must have a home. It’s easy to overlook the importance of keeping your workspace organized, and that’s exactly why I’ll walk you through 5 super-quick fixes for the biggest organizing woes your desk is causing.

The good news is, a desk is small. This won’t take hours; it just takes a few moments throughout your day to tackle each project.

We all have it: a power bar with six things plugged into it, a knot of cords, and a thick layer of dust. This makes even a completely clear desk feel like total chaos.

Most of us have things on our desks we’ve collected throughout our careers that we actually like and are proud of: books, photos, collectibles. They clutter up the desk even though they are well-intentioned. Rather than leaving them as is and working around them, there’s a simpler way. A desktop shelf lifts up and reveres these collected treasures, and gives you back the working surface. Measure your desk depth and the clearance above it, then pick your shape.

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There is a difference between paper you need this week and paper you need to file, and most people only have a system for the latter, leaving the former in an annoying stack beside the keyboard, or worse, scattered all over the desktop.

Lots of us use headphones at our desks. Taking calls, editing, recording, heck, even gaming off-hours! Headphones are a major space hog on your desk. They’re big, clunky, and take up as much space as a birthday cake.

Many standard office desks in a cubicle have (at least) one deep drawer built for hanging file folders. Almost nobody uses it for that anymore. So it becomes a pit where supplies, work bags, snacks, cables, and corporate swag hang out in a completely disorganized fashion, of course.

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25 PCS Plastic Clear Drawer Organizer – $24.29