That’s interesting. I have a similar “container”, a 20GB HDD that I use as a “Scratch Pack” (named for historical reasons).

I use this in the same way. Downloads, temporary files, and various “To Do” items all get dumped onto the Scratch Pack.

It’s extremely handy to have these items all in one place and it keeps my desktop clutter to a minimum.

I’m with you. I sometimes give “Intro to Mac OS” sessions in the course of my teaching digital filmmaking at SFSU and I try to instill the habit of using the desktop “as a desktop.” It’s where I make all my “messes,” but I have a strict rule that clearing the desktop MUST be done at the end of each work session.

Kind of in the spirit of GTD, it forces me to action every loose end. When creative types are in the throes of creating, we make messes. I’m always piling up loads of files with names like “finaltest3.mov” and “test222.mov” and if you put them on the desktop then force yourself to rename, delete and otherwise “clear” them at the end of each and every session (by renaming and placing the “keepers” into the appropriate project folder—usually on an attached drive), you stay on top of things and avoid needless HD clutter.

My mantra: ALL current session activity on desktop—desktop clean EVERY time I leave the workstation. Isn’t that really how a desktop is supposed to work?

OT: Kudos on an outstanding website, Merlin! I discovered it yesterday via boingboing because I just bought GTD and am hoping it will get my insanely harried life in order. I relate heavily to the “geek-appeal” factor (user SYFer on /.) and am excited about GTD. This site is already on my daily “must read” list. Good design, good writing and excellent content.

Thanks, Dave, and I really like your point about the tie-in with GTD (partly, because it gives me a chance to mention something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately).

I think the business-y bent of the book should definitely allow of some alteration for people’s different needs and skills—especially when it’s being applied to nerds whose “trusted system” includes a command line interface, sharpshooting searching skills, and massive storage abilities.

For example, there’s stuff like this junk drawer concept that falls outside (or even seems to contradict) the “only touch it once” philosophy. But to me that’s the big take-home of GTD that strict adherents and process scolds just don’t get: Getting Things Done is ultimately about learning how you work, where you get bogged down, and how your brain wants to operate. Once you develop the tweaks for your own contexts and special situation, you’re golden.

(more on this in future posts, I suspect)

D’oh! Sorry ‘bout the squashedtogetherformatting—should have previewed!

it’s crazy that I found your site/this post today (through Quicksilver’s forum btw), as I was just thinking this morning about how to clean up my desktop. i’m in the same boat as you, and I suspect, many others. the solution I’d come-up with this morning was to create a folder that contains alias’s to the directories I use most (for the ‘junk’ that ends up on my desktop). Because it turns out, that that ‘junk’ is stuff I mostly need/want, just don’t file properly. So the folder with the alias’s - in spirit of keeping the desktop pristine - would go in my dock, next to the trash can.
now as I build up stuff on my dsektop I can quickly pop open my folder with the most used alias’s right there for PROPER filing, instead of the gawd-awful mess I’ve been creating.

And I think i’ll steal your idea merlin, and color label my alias’s for quicker identification. thanks for the post. I’ll definitely be a frequent visitor to your site - as many of the topics seem to mirror my own- I’m just not disciplined (driven) enough to write them up.

Not just for Mac users… although I started using a desktop folder called “cleanup” when I worked on OX 8, I’ve carried the practice over to my XP box as well… every so often, I drag the whole folder over to my firewire 80GB drive and start over again. It’s amazing how much stuff I’ve wanted 6 months later can be found in those cleanup folders.

Merlin, thanks for the site and the pointer to GTD. As a result of reading your site, and doing some footwork research on the book, I decided today to go out and get it myself and see how it works for me. I’m notoriously bad at my time management, in part due to procrastination, in other part because I just plain tend to forget to do things. All the advice I’d been given in the past was just flim-flam compare to what I’m reading here about GTD.

I also do the “junk” style folder, though I tend to have a few project-related folders to sort things into, depending on what work projects i’m handling at the time. the rest goes to a more general folder that i just toss to the back of the hard-drive once in awhile. it gets cleaned out occasionally when i start wondering where i put something a few weeks ago. i almost always find it in there, and then begin a 5-minute clean out of .zip files of 6-month-old software downloads.

Sure, I call that “Locker”.

Lovely piece of desktop peace.

I use a shareware app called “TrashLater X” that let’s me set up a folder so that any older than 30 days is trashed. I have a folder on my desktop set up this way., and that’s where I put all those things I might want to read when I have time. I often URLs from safari right into this folder. I go through the folder when I am taking a break and want to catch up on some interesting things.If I don’t read an item in 30 days, it’s goes away and I never miss it.