There are a few guidelines to the ‘productive desktop’:

1) NO DESKTOP ICONS.

The first thing to do is to organize all of your desktop icons so that your programs are in a program folder and your documents are in a document folder. Check out my article on color-coding your folder to help in organization. Next, right click your desktop, select ‘arrange icons by’ and un-check ’show desktop icons’. Whoa! Where did they all go? There is nothing left!! What will I do? Proceed.

2) NO TASK BAR.

Since I am not hooked on just using an app-launcher (although I do experiment with Launchy every once-in-a-while) and the alt+tab method of selecting programs – I say keep your task bar, but don’t let me see it! Use AlphaXP Lite to set your task bar on full transparency. This will hide any possible start menu, task bar and icon tray distractions. It’s also pretty cool to see the task bar fade in and out when you hover over it.

3) DESKTOP GTD

I employ a very modified and simplified GTD system on my desktop, which consists of a basic to-do list and a ‘thoughts to remember’ list. I use Samurize to embed these text documents into my desktop. I gave my desktop a basic dos-like feel, but Samurize is pretty customizable.

I have been using this system for weeks now and have not had any problems running my programs out of the windows explorer. I really like seeing my to-do’s every time I glance at my desktop – it’s all in an effort to focus.

One of the easiest ways of implementing icon customization is to color-code your folders. Come up with some sort of key and then assign the colors to specific folder types. Personally, I color-code my client’s folders to differentiate between leads, research, working and finalized. This is a very simple means to get an instant snapshot of your pipeline.

I’d recommend using Folder Maker. They have a few different versions – but the free editions features all of the basic folder customizations that you need.