Personally, I spend around 30% of my working day at my desk, tops; 70% on the move around the building. (I will state that this is an inherent part of my vocation rather than a skive.) I found that when I returned to my desk cluttered in paper, stationery, coffee stains and paperclip-chaos, my head instantly surged with grey sludge. But, the admin isn't going to do itself and the point of this is not to get fired; it's to tolerate and hopefully enjoy some things a little more than otherwise.
On the great news that my job was safe recently, I never felt more at home away from home. That's a lie, of course. I love Barcelona and The Hague, for example. Point being that I wanted to enjoy updating a spreadsheet at my desk just a little more than not at all. At the first opportunity, I tidied my desk. I emptied my drawers replacing the contents with only meaningful crap and re-arranged things to be in line with my own anatomical feng shui.
To celebrate the clean sheeting of my desk, I bought it a plant and a pot of my favourite colour (green, but I also like purple) for us both to enjoy. I also put up a small framed picture of two urban-cladded penguins dropping some breaks to a cartoon ghettoblaster, but each to their own. More on Power Animals in a later post, promise.
I'm not saying that I enjoy updating documents at all, I just resent the irretrievable time spent doing so a little less.
Obviously, this post wont apply to everyone, but the concept is to get enough content out there so that service users can pick n' mix their favourites. Kind of like professional and domestic agnosticism; believe what suits you to make the parts that assemble the whole a little better, piece by peace. Maaan.
Cheers and thanks,
Monty
Co-founder, The Clean Sheet