Wires, Wires Everywhere

So I have a buddy, he’s a great guy, and I’ve known him forever. Recently He’s spent a day or so in my office in my home. One of the things that he’s very particular about is how his desk is set up. He sends me pictures of how well organized some computer labs are set up with their wires and cables and cords all organized and colour coded. He loves that kind of thing and always tells me how he does his best to be exactly like that. I have to admit, I have been less fastidious about the cords going over my desk. It was a slippery slope where I would have the cables from the things that I needed, to the wires for the things that I occasionally used, to the things that I used once and never used again. It was getting to the point that I could see more of the cords on my desk and less of the desk itself, and they looked like they were creeping up on me more and more.

Well, my friend came over, and I apologized for the cords, and he said, “Yeah….I was going to say…” so clearly, I had to do something about it. I decided that I wanted to have my desk space be a place that I would enjoy coming to every morning (as we’re still working from home), and I figured it was important for me to have a space that I enjoy. I’m not sure what your office space is like (obviously, as I’m not in your home), but if you think that there is something wrong with your workspace or if there is something that you would like to change, You might want to ask yourself three questions;

1) Do you need everything on your desk? – I would like to emphasize the word need for this particular question. If your keyboard and mouse are wireless, are there charge cables associated with them on your desk? If so, get them off your workspace. If you have drawers in your office, put the cables and cords you aren’t using every single day in there. If you don’t have drawers, then either get some or find a basket or bucket where you can store your unused cables. The trick is to make it so that the stuff on your desk is the stuff you use every day. If you use it once a week, then put it away somewhere convenient so that when the need comes, you don’t have to go digging and searching for the cable you need.

2) Are the cables organized in a way that works for you? – This may sound silly, but It’s quite practical. The reason that you want to make sure that how your cables are laid out on your desk (if any) is because if something happens and you need to fix it, you want to make sure that you know what everything is. There is nothing worse than going to the back of your computer and then not knowing which cable is for what. Some people (including my buddy) would go so far as to label the cables where they are connected at the back of the computer to know which one is which. While I haven’t taken that step (as of this posting), It may or may not be in my future, depending on how many times I need to go back there.

3) Do you enjoy your workspace? – I’m not trying to go all Marie Kondo on you, but if the place you are working in doesn’t bring you some sense of…well…joy, then you need to fix that. I know that for me, having a mess on my desk is nothing but distracting and aggravating. The only reason that It happened on my desk recently was that it was a slow creep. Up until recently, it hadn’t been a problem for me. Having all the cables all over my desk worked for me until it didn’t. Once I didn’t like my space, I found time to clean it up, and I made it so that I did like it again. Hilariously, I was having trouble writing some of the posts for this blog; I cleaned up my desk and found that my writing improved. I have become more efficient at work because I had a space that I liked working in.

It’s all about configuring your space in a way that you like. If you want to be more efficient in your life, you need to have an area where you can work as efficiently as possible. For me, it means having as clean of a space as possible so that I can focus on my job and not everything on my desk. I’m not trying to discourage people with multiple cables on their desks; if that’s a way for you to work efficiently, then rock and roll. I talk a lot on this blog about what you need to do to Organize your Digital Life, but it’s equally essential to organize your physical space so that you can do what you need to as quickly and efficiently as possible.

How do you organize your workspace?

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