The Desktop Wallpaper that Finally Got Me Organized

It’s the first Monday of 2016! Time to get out of the holiday mindset and get yourself in gear for the new year.

One of my resolutions for 2016 is to practice better organization, both in my personal and professional life. I’m a girl who loves clean and organized spaces. Having a clean house and office makes me feel happier, better focused, and more creative. The problem is, I have a hard time maintaining them in real life. As much as I try to keep things tidy, I have clutterbug tendencies.

Usually, it’s my workspace that sees the worst of it. My physical and digital desktop suffer from the same problem, which is that I use them as a dumping ground. Anything and everything that doesn’t have a place but can’t get thrown in the trash yet gets tossed there. My physical desktop gets buried under paper piles and my computer desktop under miscellaneous files and folders.

To be honest, don’t even know how this happens, the physical clutter at least, since my job is 95% paperless. I’m pretty sure my husband adds to the piles when I’m not around.

About once a month I get fed up with the clutter and go on organization binge, which keeps my workspace clean for about 24 hours. I’m telling you, it’s a terrible cycle.

My first step toward a more organized life was to tackle my computer desktop. I hate looking at a cluttered desktop, but I also need a use a lot of files on a regular basis that I like to have easy access to. A file-free desktop was just not an option.

I did some research on desktop organization and came across this nifty desktop organizer wallpaper over at Laura James Studio. Her wallpaper is awesome, but I’m a little less girly and more minimal, so I created my own version (in a variety of colors, because I like to have options) that I’m sharing with you FOR FREE.

This wallpaper is great because it helps me group files into categories so I can quickly and easily find what I’m looking for. The categories to do and working on help me keep track of my current work projects. Files get moved to to file after a project is finished or when I no longer need them on my desktop. From there they get moved to a more permanent home on my hard drive. The fourth category, misc. is a catchall for personal files or files that don’t fit into the other categories.

The year is early, but I think this new system is going to be a good one.

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Hey, before you go take a moment to comment below. How do you keep your life and your work organized? Share a tip with me!