How Organized is Your Computer Desktop?

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I got a new 500GB SSD for my computer to replace my 250GB one. At first, I was planning on cloning my old hard drive to my new one to copy everything over seamlessly. But then I thought, “You know what? I want to start over.” There’s something really exciting and refreshing about starting anew. Your Documents folder is empty, your Downloads folder is empty, and your Desktop is SO clean! It’s like heaven!

I never did ‘maintenance’ on my files!

My old desktop was riddled with things I didn’t really need but convinced myself that I might want them someday. I had images I never planned on using, old design mockups I no longer needed, and random text files that I’d never use.

I realized just how horrible I was at pruning my files. I make an image, upload it to my blog, and I don’t need it anymore… but I still leave it sitting on my Desktop forever!

I solemnly swear to de-clutter

I have a new goal! I am going to regularly prune my Desktop and Downloads folder. As soon as I’m done uploading an image, into the bin it goes. And at least a few times a week I will delete my entire Downloads folder. If something is important, I’ll move it to Google Drive for storage. Otherwise, there’s no need to keep it around.

How organized is your computer?

Are your folders a mess? Do you ever delete items in your Downloads folder?

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I'm a 30-something California girl living in England (I fell in love with a Brit!). My three great passions are: books, coding, and fitness. more »

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33 comments

  1. Our desktop is a bit odd-we have several virtual machines set up and running due to my husband’s job (he’s a programmer for industrial HVAC systems). I have my own virtual machine set up and it’s pretty clean-one folder for book cover downloads for my blog and that’s about it! I don’t really have any documents and pictures on my machine. Family pictures/GoPro videos, budget spreadsheet etc are on the host, which I don’t ever go on (my husband’s domain lol).

  2. My desktop has 8 or 9 icons on it currently, I reorganized it about a month ago šŸ˜€ Before that it had maybe 15-16, and I had them all sitting in the right hand corner (so when I save files to my desktop they don’t get unorganized). I actually have folders on my desktop that I save all my go-to files to (GFX, Photoshop, Text, Inspo, etc), and a shortcut to my downloads folder, and a few program shortcuts as well. The downloads folder is the one that gets messy often! But I also have folders in there to organize as well. So folders, shortcuts, subfolders, etc. My method is extensive but it works for me!

    Kaniesha @ Deux Lectrices recently posted: Heather Reviews: Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy
  3. I am pretty neat when it comes to my computer. Sometimes I let it get away from me and I’ll need to cull it but overall it’s organized. I don’t throw away stock images though. I paid for them so I keep them in their old folder since the sites I get them from only allow them to be downloaded once.
    The folder I need to go through is my wedding folder lol. Good god that’s out of control.

    1. Yeah I hoard all my stock images too. šŸ™‚ Never going to delete those! I have a huge folder for all my “Resources”, which includes stock images, textures, icons, etc.

  4. I’m a bit of an OCD-freak when it comes to this, so it’s super organised. When we switched to a new server in work the IT guys wanted to know who owned my folders because they were the most organised they’d ever seen. Gold star for me that day!

    Rachel recently posted: Review: Throne of Glass
  5. I am anal retentive as all get out, whether it comes to file folders or paper ones. I probably have a ton of things I don’t need, but they’re all neatly packed away, categorized and subcategorized, and my comp still run fast and has a lot of space so they’re not hurting anyone. I do like keeping book cover and teaser graphics easily accessible in a desktop folder to make sharing them as social posts easier and quicker.

    Brittany recently posted: Read This Review Round Up #3
  6. Every time I shut down the computer I habitually deleted the files that I no longer need. The only time that my desktop becomes messy is when Iā€™m working on something and I want them easily accessible to me. But I remedied it by creating a new folder and that is where I put the files I needed for that project. After Iā€™m done I check which ones I keep and which ones are off to the trash bin. This method helps tremendously.

    Mitchii @ The Aeropapers recently posted: Is research can make or break a deal?
  7. Oh my lets just not go there..lol. I keep telling myself I need to spend some time getting rid of things I don’t need, not only from my doc and downloads but from my blogs media file. I got so much crap everywhere it’s just horrible, horrible..ugh.

    Stormi recently posted: Review of Illusions of Fate
  8. I’m particularly neat with my home computer because I don’t want it getting cluttered and slowing down on me. My work computer is even more so but at the same time I have to keep a lot more things with the work computer. Pictures though? I have a hard time deleting those. I never know when I’m going to need them so I don’t purge those too often, but everything else is in danger of being axed.

    1. Haha yeah I have that problem. I save an image (for use on the blog), upload it to my blog, then forget to delete it from my desktop for aaaages.

  9. I got a new SSD back in the spring, too.My old one was quite cluttered. I wanted the new one to be clean, so ever since then I’ve been keeping it really tidy, delete unused pics and stuff. As for my desktop, that I have always been very pedantic about, like, I order them based on their function. I have a line for basic Windows softwares, games, drawing and photo editing programs, etc.

  10. I just got a new laptop recently after my old one died on me. It’s still so neat and tidy right now, and from the moment I got it, I was determined that it was going to stay that way. (By the time my old laptop had reached it’s end, I was getting very frustrated with how messy everything seemed on it.) So far, I’ve managed to keep up with that, but I’m not all that far into having this laptop. We’ll see how long I manage to keep it up.

  11. Oh man, my desktop is a mess too! I never clean it up… I used to be really into coding (mostly during the summer and winter when I had time to learn) and I have a bunch of unfinished projects with flaws and whatnot. I write as well so I have a crapload of files everywhere with story ideas.. Wow, I should really invest in a 32gb USB. Maybe that will be a weekend goal: clean up my desktop. I’m just afraid I’ll delete something and then want to use it later! I’d hate that.

    Tori @ Bookish Affairs recently posted: Keeping Up with the Queue
  12. Hehe, funny. My boys always rant when they don’t find icons on my desktop to programs THEY regularly use, like for cleaning cookies and defrag. But since _I_ only use those once a month or so, I actually go into the folder and start the program there, because I HATE stuff cluttering my desktop. My download folder holds still a few things I don’t know if I need them again, or didn’t have time to properly move away yet, but I still keep it pretty organized and not too over-stuffed.

    Caro @ The Book Rogue recently posted: BTT #26 - Shakespeare
  13. Oh gosh, this is a major issue for me. I probably have SO much crap I don’t need on my computer! I’m pretty good about keeping my downloads folder cleared out of the stuff I’ll never use, but I have a lot of little pictures and quotes and things that I like that I don’t really know what to do with. The worst is pictures from my iPhone. I used to keep my pictures meticulously organized by date and event, etc. when I was using my digital camera. But now, with my iPhone being my camera, I just upload them every few months (and by then there are like 900 of them) into a folder titled “from iPhone.” They’re not organized at all, and it bugs me! Plus I don’t really delete any photos off of my phone, so I have a lot of pointless pictures (i.e. book haul pics for my Heartbeat Weekly posts). *sighs* Someday I will clean it all up….someday when I’m retired, ha!

    Jessi @ Novel Heartbeat recently posted: Life of a Blogger: Clothing
  14. Unfortunately, my desktop is not organized at all. I used to have these main folders on my desktop- design, blog, watch (for tv series and movies), listen (for music)- but now I have files everywhere on my desktop. I’ve developed this bad habit of saving unfinished drafts there because I forget about them when I put them into folders.

    I’ve been meaning to ask you actually how you keep organized with your files! Would love to hear all about it so I could learn alesson or two. šŸ™‚

    Hazel @ Stay Bookish recently posted: Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang
  15. My personal computer is very organized. I have maybe 12 things on my desktop, and they’re application shortcuts. Everything else is nestled into folders and subfolders and sub?subfolders. My work computer is a completely different story. I have two computer screens, and once screen is completely covered in documents and spreadsheets and PDF files and screencaps and so on and so forth. It’s over two years of data, so I’m really overwhelmed by the idea of tidying that up. Slow season will be upon me soon, so that will be as good as time as any, right?

    Jackie recently posted: Weekend Review: Pig-a-palooza

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