Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
The Uncluttered Desktop
Long ago, during a brief stint as an office-manager for a tech-company, my boss (now a client) used to laugh at me for closing one “window” on the computer before opening another. “You don’t have to do that, Amanda,” he’d mutter impatiently. But I was paranoid about all that open data: all that work. I was afraid I’d lose something if I didn’t save and close each document before going on to my next task.
I thought of this recently when I was with a client whose computer-guy had admonished her not to have so many windows open at once. The hard-drive, he explained, would be slowed down by having multiple open applications.
Is it any wonder? Can you blame it? Just as a messy desk inhibits efficiency, a clear desktop, real or virtual is conducive to efficiency. I can’t speak to the inner workings of my MacBook Air, but I know that I find it easier to concentrate when I am only looking at the task I am trying to accomplish.
So much of what I do is about helping people to bring one task home (see newsletter #27) before starting the next task. So, if your computer is struggling, maybe you’ve left too many windows open. Believe me, I understand, it is a slippery slope. You were halfway through buying rain boots at L.L. Bean when you got an email that reminded you about a scheduling issue, so you opened i cal, which reminded you that you needed to download and print the kid’s medical forms for camp.
HALT! Go back to the boots. Buy the boots and then move on. Sometimes it helps to keep an actual pad of paper by the computer so that you can jot down TO DO items as they occur to you- without stepping away from the task at hand. There are so many ways to be distracted and cluttered. Resist. Just because a cluttered desktop on your computer doesn’t annoy your spouse the way that actual paper-clutter does, doesn’t make it okay.
Funnily enough, after I wrote this newsletter there was an editorial in the Sunday New York Times about how detrimental distractions are to our ability to function. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/opinion/sunday/a-focus-on-distraction.html?_r=0However, the study also explained that people can “steel themselves against interruption” and that when they do, they can actually function at very high-levels.
So, be kind to your hard-drive. Don’t overwhelm it. Stick to one task at a time, and who knows, you might eliminate a lot of foot tapping and annoying-spinny-pinwheel watching. And that, in turn, might free you up to go outside with an actual pinwheel and enjoy this gorgeous, spring day.