Creating a Functional and Productive Desktop With Icons
Archive File Cabinet Drawer
Customizing your folders and desktop icons can help you to quickly and easily locate your favourite applications, the projects you are working on, your most important files and folders.

This example with an icon of a vintage filing cabinet would make a great choice for a folder with archived projects.

Rapidly finding and identifying the files you are looking for speeds up your work and reduces stress.

Perhaps the easiest way to make your desktop more productive with icons is to use a set of folder icons in different colors to color code your projects.

One way to colour code your tasks and files with folder icons is by assigning a color to a type of project, for example by using blue folders for work projects and green folders for personal projects.

Misty Lavender Folder Icon
Another way to colour code projects is to use colors to indicate workflow or actions. For example using one colour for urgent actions, one for projects on hold, one for stuff that needs to be sorted out, one for downloads, one for inspiration or brainstorming, one for research and yet another for completed and filed projects.

This method works excellently for David Allen’s Getting Things Done (or GTD) action management method but also for personal methods of staying productive.

Not only does customizing your icons to simplify work and leisure on your computer increase your productivity, but using icons of your choice and taste as opposed to generic icons can make your life on your computer more fun and beautiful.

Illustration with an archive icon "another case for the files" from Private Eye Act 3 and a misty lavender folder icon from Luminous Blue Folder Icons. Browse icons in the Freebies section.