A Clean Desk in Under 17 Minutes

I decided to take my own advice yesterday after complaining that my bedroom was becoming too big of a mess. So I took it upon myself to just focus on one area: my desk. I sit at my desk all day, every day, for hours on end. Between blogging, social networking, correspondence and school work, this is my true classroom/office. Here is a before and after look at how I cleaned my desk in under 17 minutes.

Before: as you can see, my desk gets cluttered very quickly.
Books, my iPad, supplies - they all fall victim to lazy organization.

And after! Everything has a place and there is a place for everything.

I purchased these Martha Stewart boxes at Staples a few months ago.
They stack perfectly on top of each other so I can store my jewelry underneath the post-its.

These don't fit in the pencil/pen caddy, so this larger box works perfectly!

Extra supplies: wall unit for my Macbook Pro, the HDMI converter
for my iPad, and my Square card reader. 

I converted some old JewelMint boxes into handy organizational boxes.
Like the martha Stewart ones, these can also be stacked. And the velvet
lining helps keep everything in place! 

The view from my chair.
It's a lot easier to sit here and work when there isn't a lot of clutter!

On the keyboard tray to the right: school work.

On the keyboard tray to the left: iPad, a notebook, and my other laptop.
Oh, and my crappy phone!

The next cleaning project to tackle? The top of my dresser. It's even worse than the desk was (if you can imagine!)

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Clutter, Clutter Everywhere!

If my bedroom looked like this I'd probably keep it clean!

I recently moved my desk into the bedroom so that we could have a bit more room in the living room for our chairs. It's worked out really well so far because I can stay in the smaller bedroom with just a portable air conditioner and not have to turn on the central air, which would cool every room in the house (including the ones I'm not in). Plus, it's nice to have a separate study space from Jeff so that we don't both each other.

The problem with it is that our bedroom is always the least organized room in the apartment. There are always clothes everywhere and our closet is packed beyond belief. I can barely even walk to my side of the bed because there is just so much stuff in the way! I really need to do something about it.

The thing is... I can never throw stuff away. And even when I've put together bags or boxes of stuff to take to Goodwill, they never end up there because we always forget to take them when we go out.

Rather than tackling everything at once perhaps I should instead focus on cleaning one small area, like the walkway to my side of the bed. Then another time I can focus on a different area, while also trying to keep the first area clean. Good in theory? Yes. With summer upon us and the weather reaching up into the 100's every day, it would be nice to have a fresh, clean bedroom that I can look down in and not see piles of clothing.

And maybe one day I'll get to tackle the behemoth that is our closet!

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Midnight Snack

Cream cheese spread on a (cinnamon) graham cracker and topped with grapes.

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