How orderly is your mind? How tidy is your (digital) desktop?
Apparently: An orderly desktop has been said to be the sign of an orderly mind, someone who has their work together, and knows what their tool is for and how to use it. Although Einstein said:"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?"
Today is a day to celebrate (if that's the right word) an orderly computer desktop. The Clean Your Virtual Desktop day was created by the Personal Computer Museum, they calculate that if each of the estimated 2 billion computers in use today has an average of 10 unused icons on their desktop (and they think this is very low), that represents a staggering 338 acres (136 hectares) of wasted virtual space on your desktop! Imagine how many beautiful photos have been obscured by unnecessary icons, the numbers are staggering!
Today is a day to celebrate (if that's the right word) an orderly computer desktop. The Clean Your Virtual Desktop day was created by the Personal Computer Museum, they calculate that if each of the estimated 2 billion computers in use today has an average of 10 unused icons on their desktop (and they think this is very low), that represents a staggering 338 acres (136 hectares) of wasted virtual space on your desktop! Imagine how many beautiful photos have been obscured by unnecessary icons, the numbers are staggering!
This is a bit of running joke in the office. Amy's computer is untouched by the rest of the
team - no one can find anything. However, I needed to resend an email
newsletter for her one day - crickey! The icons just about covered the whole
desktop, I left her a digital sticky note (trying not to cover up too many
icons) asking if we should invest in a bigger screen to accommodate everything
on the desktop… I think she's had a bit of tidy up, I hope she can still find
everything.
In contrast Tracey has around six icons on her desktop not
covering up her photo of Stonehenge.
This is mine:
I have a fair few more as you can see but I don't think I
have any unused icons, some are rarely used but they do get the odd click. Having a visual memory swapping the standard
shortcut icons for unique ones means I can open docs quickly Snoopy leads to
the drafts of the blogs (where this has been through several revisions). Everything is arranged not to obscure the
lovely Himalayan sheepdog surveying his domain, I think I found it via National
Geographic, google reverse image search pointed me towards the blog of the
photographer, Sebastian Wahlhuetter, more here.
What state is your desktop? Do you fall into the Amy camp,
Tracey's school of minimalism or my split the difference?
And maybe more telling - what image do you have? Dare you
share it with the world?