It’s the end of the semester. Classes just finished, but I’m busy with committee meetings, thesis advising, and (of course) some grading. (Well, ok, a lot of grading.) I’m also writing an article and planning a conference presentation for early January.
What does this mean for my workspace? As I look around, there are several piles of papers and books that could be archaelogically excavated, each layer representing a different moment from the past couple of months. There are the notes for a new lecture I was putting together in late October. On top of that, materials from the conference I went to in mid-November. On top of that, the novel I finished teaching before Thanksgiving. On top of that, forms that have to be signed and returned to the administrative office. Etc. It’s not pretty.
I begin each semester with a neat and orderly office, but as the weeks move along, the detritus from the semester piles up. But I’m busy right now and don’t have time or patience for dedicating a full afternoon to clearing things out.
Enter the Five-Minute cleanup. Set a timer for five minutes, put on some energizing music, and work as quickly as you can to put things away, clear space on your desk, and restore a bit of order to your workspace.
Here’s what I was able to do just now in five minutes:
- put away Skype headset
- filed loose papers into project folders
- put project folders into filing cabinet
- put notebooks on shelf
- gathered teaching books and reshelved them
- gathered library books and reshelved them
- collected actionable items (travel forms, invoice, etc) into plastic envelope for later processing
It might not seem like much, but I can now see clear space where I couldn’t before. That gives me an encouraging feeling of progress. More than that — it is progress. If I do one or two five-minute clean-up sprints each day, in a week or so my office will be looking good again.
An added benefit of the five-minute cleanup is that it can change your energy. When I’m feeling stuck on a piece of writing, unsure where to start, or distracted by my tweetstream, simply getting up from my chair, moving around, and doing something that has real, tangible results, invariably helps me refocus.
What can you clean up in five minutes? Let us know in the comments!
[Creative Commons licensed image by flickr user wwarby]
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9 Responses to Five-Minute Cleanup
pelf81 - December 7, 2010 at 8:11 am
Great tips! I should apply this 5-min clean-up sprint everyday to cleaning my desk and bedroom. Right now, I only have some 10% space on my desk, here and there, and lots of bags occupying one corner of my room. LOL.
kathryntomasek - December 7, 2010 at 8:52 am
Had to do a ten-minute job on my dining room table to make space for clearing the desk in my study. It’s gonna take a marathon to clean up this space once sabbatical is over…. :D
heatherwhitney - December 7, 2010 at 10:25 am
This is so essential! And helpful for home pickups too.
11331315 - December 7, 2010 at 3:50 pm
The trouble with putting stuff away is that I can’t remember where I put it, but I can find anything that is still out somewhere….sometimes.
crankycat - December 7, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Toss accumulating drifts of sticky notes with expired items… Also remove assorted pieces of ad mail that were on top of the sticky notes… Reshelve journals… Find and stack three partially used legal pads (Three because these things hear you coming and scatter like rabbits when you’re looking for paper – so you have to go get another one. That fourth one? – you’ll never find it.)… Delete a random list of unwanted emails.
lugger - December 8, 2010 at 8:14 am
I laughed when I read the comment to “get up” as the added benefit of the 5-minute cleanup. As an older doctoral student, I asked if anyone remembered the days when we had to “get up” to be distracted from our writing. I find so much to distract me with a laptop in front of me. I’m working on telling myself to “get up” and not “click the mouse” when stuck.
11331315 commented about not remembering where stuff was put and I, too, suffer from this. Rather than creating a To Do list that quickly becomes outdated with lingering items, I put items (including where I stored info I need, even if I stored it electronically) on a separate card (I use the backs of old tickets to events). I sort through daily to see what needs to be worked on that day and just toss the card when finished in recycling. The stack of cards can quickly grow and clutter my desk, but a daily clean up of stacking them up helps. These little cards help me pull from emails, from conversations down the hall of something I need to take care of, etc. And yes, some cards have been there a long, long time…..but the thought or idea is not forgotten.
mccoyshelley - December 8, 2010 at 9:08 am
When I was working on my dissertation and was procrastinating (often!), I used to set a kitchen timer for 30 minutes and I was not allowed to do ANYTHING except work on my dissertation. Amazingly, once I got immersed in focusing on the task at hand, time flew by and I got a lot done. I use this same technique now for tedious projects that I keep putting off.
benbel28 - December 8, 2010 at 12:52 pm
My desk and office have gotten completely out of control over the last couple years (after returning from a sabbatical). Three weeks ago I decided to start to excavate from the BOTTOM, not the top. What a help! all those “gonna get to it eventually” matters are long past important. I work at this a few minutes at a time. Progress is slow, but I’m beginning to see a desk corner pretty regularly. Gotta run– more digging to do.
allieoop - December 8, 2010 at 1:29 pm
I, too, was suffering from things I put away and couldn’t find. Last year I bought a ‘tickler” file. It has a file folder for each month and a folder for each day 1-31. When I have papers, notes, etc. that related to something at a later time, I simply file them in the month. At the beginning of each month, I file the papers in that folder in the day folders. The file box is about the size of those portable file boxes and fits neatly under my desk. Every day, I take out the appropriate day’s file and work from there.