You start the day with a clean desk only to have it cluttered by evening. Before you know it, you can hardly find anything. Having an organized desk is vital for your productivity. It keeps you in a right frame of mind, motivated, and ready for any curve ball that comes your way. Let’s face it. You have limited time. Hence you need DIY desk organization ideas to get the job done. 

As a busy professional, your time is important. Keeping an organized desk ensures that you save yourself frustration from losing items or important documents. We share with you twenty-four quick and practical tips for a clean and organized desk.

The first step to an organized desk is to declutter. Consequently, you should give your desk a clean look by clearing the big and unnecessary items on your desk. Put them back where they belong. Organize and stack papers together.

Of course, we can’t forget the pens, pencil and sticky notes vying for your attention lying around in neglect. So, take time to check all your to-do-lists before you get rid of used sticky notes.  If you still have your coffee cup lying around you know it’s high time to take a break and stretch.

It’s obvious you have your priorities sorted in your diaries. But it can get even better when your desk is as sorted as your dairies. Collect the diaries and sort them in order of priorities. The mesh desk organizer with a stylish drawer is your simple desk organizer and one among many desk storage ideas.

The Simple Houseware mesh desk organizer has two-sided load letter trays. Five two-inch compartments make for adequate space for your accessories. It is compact and yet small enough to fit anywhere, making the perfect addition to your table. 

You could take it a step ahead and let your professional and personal diaries take up separate space in your shelf. This will thereby make it easy to keep only one journal on the desk at a time.

For small desk organization ideas, you can never do enough with accessories. The handy pen, pencil, markers, and tape, are always something for which you reach. Besides, keeping them together on your small desk is simple.

Make a quick addition to your desk with these Gold Desk Accessories. It comes with 44 items that cover all the essentials for your desk like a gold stapler, gold scissors, pen and pencil holder, gold binder clips and gold paper clips.

We know there’s never enough space for all your things. So, how do you manage to be efficient without having all your essentials around? We all have some unused space on our walls. 

For a tidy and organized desk, a pegboard organizer is an apt solution. You can conveniently hang it on the wall above your desk and still keep your essentials close by.

Often, extra things from the previous day’s work or even last week’s pile can lie around your desk. An easy way to collect and go back to it later is to have hanging shelves or floating shelves or even a wall mount to stack such things.

Even though you might feel you need everything on your desk, trust us -- you can do with a few of them. Besides, having many things on the desk can make it appear cluttered even if it’s not. 

Clutter is a distraction and can reduce your efficiency and productivity. With only a few things to take care of, it's much easier to focus on the essential tasks.

After a hard day’s work, giving yourself a little care can make your desk cleaning little less daunting. One work desk organization ideas is to indulge in listening to music or take care of necessities like a fresh breeze from your table fan.

Desk Fan

This touch sensitive electric fan adds style and functionality to your desk. With its one-touch speed control, you can manage the speed. Shut down the cooling fan with three easy touches. The bionic shell design blends well with any furniture in the room. With a quiet and sturdy performance, you can work uninterrupted on your organized desk.

Mkono Glass Vase Plant Terrarium

Add some beauty to an otherwise dull desk. The glass bowl supported by stent stand allows you to keep plants and other accessories for your desk. Let it adorn your desk or shift it to another place to make a place for other essential things. Keep a calm and relaxed environment with the glass vase plant. This single globe does not occupy much space and is compact for your small organized desk.

We’re all used to sitting on our laptops for long hours. However, a sedentary lifestyle is unpopular for its ill-effects on health. It can overburden your job of cleaning and keeping an organized desk. While you cannot reduce your workload by taking regular breaks, hydrating your body is vital to keep you active and fresh for long hours.

Your planner works as your vision board to plan your day and schedule activities. One way to always find it is to keep it on the desk where you can see it easily. A dedicated space means you are not still searching for your planner and are ready to take on a hectic day. Another advantage is of quickly jotting down important events in the right place as planned without spending time searching for the planner. It helps to have an organized desk.

Wires coming in between the laptop, mouse and hand movement can be a hassle. Use a clip to tie the wires together or tape them underneath the table for quick and uninhibited movement.

Even though you’re fond of keeping frequently read books on the desk, its best to keep one at a time. It helps maintain focus and lets you complete the book. One common complaint most people have is of not having enough time to read and finish a book. If you struggle to complete a book, then you can improve your reading skills by focusing on a few techniques to read more books in a year.

If you are still wondering how to how to organize your desk, take the help of brackets. Conveniently attach angled brackets to your desk and reduce the number of items on your desk. If you don’t wish to have angled brackets, L brackets will work well. Also, this will help you to keep old and essential papers close by.

Garbage lying around can be a hindrance. Picking it up every few minutes can take away your precious work time. Instead, keep small storage bins that you can hang at the corner of the desk or place it on your desk.

Of course, that’s not to say that you don’t need to empty the small bins. At the end of the day or every couple of days, clear them for a clean and organized desk.

Make it easy to sort your mail or other papers with a mail sorter. Mail sorters make it convenient to keep the documents in different sections and also easily retrieve them. Another advantage of a mail sorter is that you also get color-coded ones to make it even easier to gain access to time-sensitive documents, special events or dates that need to be highlighted.

Remember how your school and college books were easy to identify with a label? Similarly, labeling all essential accessories, diaries and papers can ensure you get access to your things much faster than you expected. In turn, you don’t have to spend time remembering which items have been kept in which place, thereby making it a smooth routine.

Whether you work from an office or home, you cannot deny you have plenty of distractions. From the water cooler moments to the regular doorbell and phone ringing you can see time slipping by quickly. To hasten your hustle, set timers for tasks. By doing so, you limit the time spent on breaks and are time-bound in completing your tasks. Thereby, you not only end up finishing your daily, weekly and monthly tasks, but have enough time to sort your desk from time-to-time without any burden.

Dusting can improve productivity and make time to maintain an organized desk. When you work long hours at one place, your body gets used to that environment. With constant pollen, allergens and dust your health can take a beating. Also, it impacts your concentration. Regular dusting keeps your desk clean to avoid any unwanted allergens that can disrupt your work environment. Employees are more likely to perform better with a clean and organized desk.

If you are behind your schedule, one reason could be the lack of day planning. Without control of your schedule, you are left doing what you feel is vital without prioritizing. In such cases, planning the night before can save a few minutes at the start of the day. It can keep your desk organized and ready with the essentials on the counter.

Being distracted leads to more time on trying to complete a task. You try to schedule your work and before you know it, your schedule is gone for a toss. Stick to your tasks by following 15 minutes, 30 minute, or an hourly schedule. To ensure you abide by the limit, try to keep distractions like your phone, music, or coworkers to a minimum.

A pinboard is perfect for pinning your goals, schedule, and to-do-list. Your pinboard acts as a vision board to quickly glance through your performance and to reset your to-do-list as needed. Another advantage of a pinboard is your desk is clear of the goal sheets or timetable, thereby helping you have an organized office in a short time.

It’s quite common for most of us lose track of time while at work. However, setting a timer can make you alert on time and make you switch between tasks. It also means you spend less time thinking about the task and more on actual work. Reminders are a right way to schedule your work and also keep five to ten minutes in the morning organizing your desk. This way you are ready to start the day with a time-tracked schedule.

Post it notes have multiple uses. They don’t just work as reminders, but for cleaning too. If you have fallen crumbs on the keyboard, swipe the sticky end on the keyboard to clean it. Use it as wall art or organize your planner better. Also, these sticky notes have long been used in process improvement, and they can surely do an excellent job of letting you manage your organized desk.

A clean space, a clean desk, and organized planner are a delight to work. To make it even better, your memorable pictures in a beautiful frame can keep you in a positive mood throughout the day. When you're having a tough moment, you can glance at pictures of your family, pet, or significant other to help you power through. Remind yourself of why you work so hard.

Share this list with your friends who are not sure how to organize a small desk and are in urgent need of a clutter-free organized desk!