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Clear the Clutter: Desk & Drawers · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for riding success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're continuing our Clear the Clutter series, and if you've been following this series, you have cleaned the dirt and the dust from your area, and you've also gotten rid of random junk and knickknacks that you don't need.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's turn our attention to the main space where you do your writing, and that of course is your desk.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: The financial guru Dave Ramsey says that you must make your money behave.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because our human nature is to let money get out of control.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the same thing is true for your desk.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not careful, your desk can easily get out of control.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Before you know it, your desk becomes a catch-all for mail, to-do lists, trinkets, pens, notebooks, your computer, and books to read.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a general rule that everything on my desk has to justify its existence.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, nothing goes on my desk, or rather, nothing stays on my desk, unless it has a very good reason to be there.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Every item on your desk is literally asking for your attention by virtue of it being there.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to clear your mind and free up mental space for writing, clean off your desk and put stuff away.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, some writers believe that a messy desk is a sign of brilliance or creative genius.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't think it means any of those things.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think a messy desk just means that you're disorganized.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever I taught college, and I taught college for a long time, and I've seen a lot of messy desks over the years, when I taught college, one of my fellow professors, who shall remain nameless, of course, he had the messiest office I have ever seen anywhere at any time.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: He had books piled all over the floor, and his desk looked like somebody had literally taken a box of papers and just dumped them all over the place.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not exaggerating at all.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And whenever I would go into his office, I would feel incredibly stressed just by being in that environment.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea how he concentrated or how he got any work done because I mean, my goodness, how could you even find anything in that office?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: The funny thing was this guy was actually really nice.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: He was very kind-hearted, really, really good professor, students loved him, wonderful speaker, but he was just really, really messy.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I have no idea how he worked in that environment.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it worked for him, I don't know, but that kind of situation would never ever work for me.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I encourage you to clean off your desk.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, after you clean off your desk, don't forget about the drawers.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Your drawers can become a black hole for all kinds of office supplies and junk.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: When you're cleaning out your desk drawers, there are two important rules to follow.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: One is what I call the six-month rule.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that is, if I haven't used something in the last six months, and I probably won't use it in the next six months, the item needs to go.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: The second rule is what I call the rule of two.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that is, you don't need any more than two of a single item.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: For example, you don't need four cheap plastic letter openers with insurance agents' logos on them.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need 86 dry erase markers, you know, 23 of them in black.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you definitely don't need those four gigabyte thumb drives from 2007, none of which probably work anyway.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: So why do we keep stuff like this that we don't need?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think that we keep things because of fear.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're afraid that for some unknown reason we're suddenly going to need 170 colored paper clips, and they're not going to be there, and we're going to go into a panic, and it's going to cause some kind of crisis.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And all this comes from a scarcity mindset.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to encourage you, learn to let go of the clutter and the junk that's populating your desk, your desk drawers, and really your whole life.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: When you let go of that junk, it frees up a lot of mental space.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Here's really the bottom line with all this.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Your desk is a sacred space.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a writer, your desk is your sanctuary.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a person of faith, you wouldn't walk into church and dump all the junk in your desk drawer onto the floor of the church.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's just no way that you would do that because it's a sacred space.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And your desk is the same way.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're fulfilling your sacred calling as a writer, why would you treat your desk any differently than you would treat your church sanctuary?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Come to your sanctuary, come to your desk each day with proper reverence and respect.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: You need to treat your desk and your work area like the holy place that it is.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: So here's today's challenge.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Take 10 minutes today and clean up your desk.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Organize your desk area, get rid of the junk, put stuff away, and use those extra letter openers that I mentioned earlier to open all the checks that are going to be coming your way from your increased productivity and more mental space due to having a clean desk.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I promise it's going to work, and you're going to thank me later for cleaning up your desk.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to feel better, and it's going to give you a great rest of the day.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Today's episode is sponsored by the Daily Writer Club.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you've always wanted to finish that book you've been working on and build a business around your writing, this is the group that you've been waiting for.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Members have access to weekly writing sprints, live calls with expert teaching, access to retreats and events, and much more.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Visit dailyriderclub.com to sign up for your free 14 day trial.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, and I'll see you tomorrow.