Hello everybody! Welcome back to my blog. The purpose of this blog is to help people find their way to a healthier lifestyle. I mostly talk about exercise and its science, which is my area of expertise, but I also talk about nutrition, sleeping habits and many other subjects related to wellbeing and healthy lifestyle. 

A while ago I shared a post about minimalism and how to become a bit more organise in your life, have a look at it if you haven’t had the opportunity yet!

(My) minimalism

My sister says that I should stop writing about health and start focusing my blog on these matters, and my husband calls me the “Spanish Marie Kondo”, so I thought it might be a good idea to give you some tips today about how to keep your desk organise to study, work, read, draw, or whatever you do on it!

Have you ever felt like tidying up your desk or bedroom every time you have to sit down and get something done? Experts say that this is because we want to procrastinate and do those tasks as late as possible. I believe there’s more to it. Sometimes we know it has to get done, we simply cannot handle the overwhelming amount of stuff we have around.

For that reason, we start putting things away to create the space. Our mind needs some tidiness to be able to focus on the task. A tidy desk is a tidy mind!

This may take 10 minutes or 10 hours, depending on how many things you have to go through. So for this process, put a podcast or some music on.

1. Step 1: Eliminate whatever doesn’t belong to there.

That glass from the coffee you had yesterday, the clothes you bought and all the tags, the tools you used to fix a light… have a look at your desk and find all those things that don’t belong on your desk and put them away.

2. Step 2: Clear the desk completely.

Put everything away, and I mean EVERYTHING. Open all the drawers, empty all the shelves, absolutely everything must be removed so we can see how much space we have and how we want to organise it.

3. Step 3: Clean.

This is also an important step. Nobody likes to work or study in a dirty environment, and desks are places in which we spend a good deal of time. I am not an expert in cleaning products, I honestly use a product for wood after vacuuming and that is it. It works though! It’s not too complicated and effective.

4. Step 4: No mercy!

This step is my favourite. Marie Kondo believes that we should keep the things that ‘spark joy’. The problem is that a desk might not be the most enjoyable part of the house. There you do your work or study, things that are often associated with stress, routine, obligation, and therefore it might be difficult to find the joy on it. So for the purpose of this post, let’s get rid of anything you don’t need.

Take the items one by one and ask yourself if you really need to keep it. Some ideas of things we don’t need are: old receipts, old full notebooks, old notes you dealt with already, old letters and envelopes, old dairies, etc. In future posts, I will give you some more details about this category, because it can be tricky.

When doing this process, check the items you don’t want to keep or don’t need and if they’re in good conditions, donate them. Someone else might need them. Otherwise, recycle as much as you possibly can!

5. Step 5: Divide by categories.

Now that we have selected the items we want or need to keep, let’s divide them by categories. For example, I divide my desk items like this: books, notebooks, recording items, markers, clips, post-its, notepads, spare pens, etcetera. You can follow this or you can find your own division, whatever works for you.

By separating the items by categories we will see how much of everything we have, so that we can find a perfect place for them.

During this process you might realise that there are other items you don’t really need or want. Trust me, once you start getting rid of useless things you cannot stop.

6. Step 6: Analyse the spaces available.

Look at the desk with all its drawers and shelves and be aware of how much space you have available. This is an important step so we can make the next one happen.

7. Step 7: Organise.

For this step, you can either use the space with no adjustments, reuse things like cardboard boxes or plastic containers as organisers, or buy brand new organisers. I am no handyman and very picky so I prefer to buy the organisers. If you choose the last option, make sure you take measurements so the organisers fit in your desk.

As you can see in the picture, this is how I have decided to organise my drawers. The items you see are the ones I use the most, so I have them very handy. I honestly don’t have much more than that. As you might know from the post I talked about at the top I consider I am very minimalist and I don’t have many things.

This part could be a bit complicated if you haven’t organised anything before, but don’t worry if you don’t master the process just yet. It’ll get better the more you practice!

8. Step 8: Personalise.

Even though the desk should just have the things we need to study or work, we can add some personal things as decoration. Don’t overwhelmed your desk with many items that will just take a lot of space, but it’s good to incorporate a little bit of joy on it.

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That’s it for today! I really hope that you enjoy this post. If you like what I do and you want to support this project, follow me on Instagram and Facebook, like the post and comment! Thank you!