[junglebunny]

I work at home, and I have a desk in the corner of the living room. Most of the time I find it getting cluttered with mail, and other household things. How do I keep my desk from being a catch all?

[carebear]

Learn to read your mail near a trash can. I do this. I always throw junk first then put bills in a bill holder and file the rest if I need to keep it in my file cabnet. Usually only bills need to be kept. The rest is thrown out right away. No clutter.

[Gilipsie]

That's easy. Most of my mail is trash can fodder!

[sacback1]

Maybe I am paranoid but I even shred my junk mail. Some of them are applications for credit cards with my name on it and I have heard so much about identity theft.

[Cyd]

The movies have created this urban legend. The research confirms that most identity theft occurs from carelessness at government and banks with your private data. The likelihood of someone sifting your garbage for an unused credit card application is too small to measure.

[Smilla]

The things that end up in hotspots like your desk are usually things that you don´t have a system for. Try to figure out what categories of things tend to end up on your desk and make sure you have a system for how to handle them.

Since you already know that mail is a problem you could start with that. At our house we have a cabinet in th entry where we keep one tray for bills, one tray for things to file and one tray for papers we need to do something with (like answer, fill out etc). Junkmail goes directly into the recyklingbin.

[dave]

I generally clear the desk surface by removing the stuffs to the drawers initially thereafter transfer the papers etc to a big pile by evaluating each item.

[KT!]

Originally Posted by Smilla

The things that end up in hotspots like your desk are usually things that you don´t have a system for. Try to figure out what categories of things tend to end up on your desk and make sure you have a system for how to handle them.

I couldn't agree more! If you had a system and it's no longer working, you have a broken link. Study what is going on and tweak your old system so it works for you.