Someone noted that a clean desk is the sign of a cluttered desk drawer. One “Secrets for Success” author facetiously says, “Top management can get away with a clean desk. For the rest of us, it looks like you’re not working hard enough. Build huge piles of documents around your workspace. To the casual observer, last year’s work looks the same as today’s work; it’s volume that counts. Pile them high and wide.”
I certainly wouldn’t advocate that approach! Rather, we achieve more when we focus on the one thing God wants us to accomplish. A cluttered desktop works against that principle. There’s an old saying, “out of sight out of mind.” But the opposite is also true. In sight, means in mind.
Clearing your desktop at the beginning of the workday however can be counterproductive if it diverts your attention to trivialities just to get them off your desk. That’s why clearing your desk at the end of each workday sets tomorrow’s focus and redeems the time.
Rick Grubbs is best known as the host of “Redeeming the Time,” a one-minute radio program featured on hundreds of radio outlets around the world. He has spoken thousands of times on Biblical time management in all 50 states and 26 other countries. He is the author of the book “Morning Momentum: God’s plan for launching an unstoppable day”. He and his wife Carrie live in Salisbury NC with several of their 12 children.
