Clear your desk every afternoon, clear your mind every evening
Want to simplify your life?
Try this: at the end of every day, clear your desk of all your work material.
Think you can’t do it? Try it. You’ll be surprised at how much simpler it is than you think, and how much it affects your calmness when not at work.
I’ve been doing it a few months. Before I did it I would have thought it would take too much time in the morning to get started and in the evening to wind things down. Or that it would force me to interrupt tasks in the middle. I haven’t found those worries to materialize. On the contrary, I’ve found the practice gives me accountability. It forces me to think at a higher level about each task at least every day.
Doing the exercise replaced the worry I’d take time to put things away and take them back out with finding I saved time by regularly mentally organizing the tasks, which made them more manageable.
Doing the exercise replaced the worry I’d interrupt tasks with clarifying the rest of my life, because things I left things I didn’t need to worry about where they belonged, out of my mind.
Try it. I found it easier than emptying my inbox.
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