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How to: Spring Clean your Cluttered Windows Desktop
Ricardo Trejo
Does the image look familiar? If it does then it may be time to spring clean that desktop of yours. But don't fret, it's not that hard to do some sprucing up, especially if you follow the simple tips laid out in this article.
To begin start by looking at what's lurking within all that mess. What do you have? I'm going to guess application icons, images you've found on the internet that you wanted to save for one reason or another, and installation files that should've been deleted as soon as you were done with them. How did I do? Was I close? If I was then congratulations, you're the average PC user.
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Identifying what you need and what you don't.
Delete everything that isn't necessary and you don't mind missing. Then locate everything you absolutely want and need. Once you've finished with that, you're going to want to separate your stuff into categories; applications, images, songs, and documents.
Allocate where everything's going.
In the case of applications and programs we can do this one (or a combination) of three ways:
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One. Make a single folder on your desktop and call it "Icons" - Move all your programs' shortcuts inside there for quick access and a clean looking desktop.
Two. The taskbar in Windows 7 makes it simpler than ever to pin an item for quick and easy access. Just right click the icon and "Pin to Taskbar" - space is limited! If you're using a version of Windows older than 7 then you can drag and drop programs to your Quick Launch area within the taskbar - just make sure that the taskbar is unlocked and Quick Launch is checked.
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Three. Same concept as the taskbar idea but for the Start Menu; Right click an application icon and select "Pin to Star Menu".
As for the rest of your junk, use the folder system Windows already has set up for you. Within your My Documents folder you'll see different folders for Documents, Music, Video, and Pictures. If you want, make another folder by right clicking on your mouse and adding a new folder and naming it "Random" for anything you feel doesn't belong in the aforementioned bunch.
(You can also make folders within folders to set up categories and help keep order - i.e. My Documents/ Photos/ Gifs, Funny, Family etc.)
Now go back to your desktop and begin filing away those files into their proper folders. But to make this go a lot fast, instead of copying and pasting each icon or file and moving them to their destination individually, hold down on the "Ctrl" key and click on each of the files of that same type you want selected - they'll become a group. Once you've chosen which are heading out together, hold down the "Ctrl" key & the "X" key to cut. Now go into the folder you want to dump these guys in and this time press down on "Ctrl" + "V" to paste them in there. Repeat as many times needed to finish up the job on the rest of your stuff.
Clean up after yourself everyday.
To prevent this sort of mess from happening again you're going to need to watch your habits. Change preferences in programs to save to your My Documents folder instead of your Desktop, and always remember to move or delete anything that does find its way on there.
And if you want to add some flare and style to your PC's looks why not go into the gadget section of Windows 7 (right click, Gadgets) and put up the weather widget. For the finishing touch grab one of these minimalist wallpapers and set it as your background. Now THAT's what I call a desktop - clutter free and ready for a new year of productivity without all the mess.
