Is a clean desk only a sign of the fact that we took the time to organize and clean it? Not at all. Our workspace represents us. It reflects our personality and work habits.

Most of us spend between 5-8% of our day looking for things rather than actually being productive. Fifteen minutes here for that archived e-mail from last year, five minutes there for that notepad with the morning meeting minutes, and thirty seconds looking for that special pen we refuse to work without.

Having a clean desk has a lot of benefits: A clean and tidy space creates an atmosphere without distractions and stress and supports people being focused. The psychological aspect of maintaining a neat work environment frees up the brain and allows it to move forward, rather than always feeling like we’re catching up on things.

Having a clean space means having a clean mind, which means our mind is ready for hard work or when unexpected projects pop up mid-day.

We have to trash everything in our work area that isn’t useful or beautiful. Think about it: we’re going to spend about a third of our waking adult life at work. Why would we want to fill our work environment–and that part of our life–with objects that are useless and ugly?

A good practice is to clean our desk every day before we leave the office. We will reduce the maintenance effort through the daily exercise rather than making a big cleaning once per week or month. Another benefit is that we will enjoy a clean desk every morning when we arrive at our desk.

Summing-up: Keep a clean desktop. Focus on one thing at a time. We might find that we can get more done and feel better while doing it.