Monthly Organizing Challenge {No.4}

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How did you do?

If you didn’t catch the first part of this Monthly Challenge, scoot over here to get all of the info…

(I really wish I had my “before” screenshot for you.)

AFTER

Stop the applause!!!

I’m sighing a huge sigh of relief. It felt soooo good to get it DONE!

Here are the steps that I took that transformed my desktop from boring and unorganized to organized and sassy!

Step One: Cleaned up my Email.

However, I made a HUGE mistake and deleted all of my archived emails in gmail which consequently deleted ALL of my filed away emails too – whoops. I learned an important lesson the hard way. (1) Don’t delete archived emails in gmail – it will delete them from your folders too and (2) I really didn’t need about 99.9% of what was filed away.

Step Two: Deleted a BUNCH!

Anything that needed to go, went bye-bye! Documents, pictures, files, duplicates etc…

Once you go looking you are usually surprised about what you find. For example why did we have Anne of Green Gables Audiobooks downloaded and still taking up a lot of space? (They had been uploaded in 06 and not touched since then either – whoops.) Sometimes goodbyes aren’t so hard.

Step Three: Rearranged my Desktop.

I have more permanent files set up under my documents folder and they work well. But I really like having things I work with regularly (day-to-day) on my desktop. Which is where a lucky pin I spotted on Pinterest came in. I clicked to the site and wham bam – I have a beautiful new (organized) desktop. If you are interested, here is the link to her tutorial plus a {free} downloadable pic. You too can make your own desktop morganized!

The best way is to stay on top your digital organization, is to keep putting things away where they belong (sort of like you do in your home – or try to). A great option is to keep a folder that is labeled “To Do” or “To Organize” for those items that you may not have the time to organize at the moment, but that you know need to be addressed sooner than later. That way they can hold tight in a pretty fashion. Digital organization can often be more challenging because so much of it is tucked away, sort of out of sight, out of mind. Work hard to stay on top of it and be an aggressive deleter!

Now before I go…I need to announce a little something – I’m sort of feeling a little like this…

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We start a New Year very soon and you know what that means? We’ve got a whole new focus to the Monthly Organizing Challenges here on MWM! We were doing one Monthly OC per quarter in 2014 and while they’ve been fun, it’s time to up the fun meter! So…join me here next Monday for our first Month in the New Year. We’re going to move mountains and yes you will need to have some moxie!

And if you have yet to join the Yearly Goal Challenge – sign up and join me HERE! The more the merrier. There are 21 printables to help you to reach those goals in 2015!