If you’re feeling overwhelmed by desktop clutter and you’re looking for a quick and easy method to tidy up your desktop and keep your digital environment tidy and organized, here’s a technique to get organized once and for all.

Maria João Valente has been using Workflow Desktop Icons to structure her digital workflow with a minimum of effort, for more than a year.

“Basically it allows me to keep files organized and an uncluttered desktop (both essential to my sanity).”

Workflow Desktop Icons

Everything revolves around three main folders, “Doing”, “To-do” and “Archive”. These can be accessed directly via the Dock on a Mac, and are regularly checked or re-organized according to the workflow. All other folders are out of sight and serve as permanent storage for further use.

Here’s a flow chart of Maria’s digital workflow.

• The Work Zone contains all the files or folders that are being used now (i.e. this week).
• The To-Do Zone has stuff to be reviewed as soon as I have the time. (Hint: most of the downloaded files get here, to be organized later. Another Hint: I use Hazel to keep this place organized by file type.)
• The Out Zone folder is where I place all files or folders that are going to be exported and stored off my computer, either on an external HD, a DVD or online.

Maintaining a peaceful and productive desktop is easy when you follow your workflow.

By sharing her process, Maria hopes to help you get you going organizing your digital stuff. (Or share with us the process you’re already using.)

Maria João Valente is an archaeologist, university professor and a passionate Mac user. She lives in Portugal and blogs about her interests at Mac ao Quadrado. You can read my interview with Maria here or follow her on Twitter.

Tags: customer story, digital environment, getting organized, how-to, inspiration, organized, overwhelm, productivity, simplicity, tutorials, workflow

Birch twigs with Easter feathers

I asked you to pick your favorite icon idea for the Marmalade Moon Icon Contest, to enter one idea for an icon that you would have exceptional use of in your digital environment. Then I’ll design a new set of beautiful and practical icons based on your ideas and the winners get this collection of icons for free.

And you came up with tons of great ideas! When going through your responses, I find three themes take form. One is icons that describe your work process, in a more specific way than the icons in the Workflow collection. The process theme includes valuable approaches for indicating how urgent your work is, when it needs to be done, what’s in transit or important, what’s a sketch, what’s overdue and what’s been approved and is a final version.

The next theme has to do with running a small business based around a blog (jacqueline, AG Ambroult, Lori, Wini, Valarie) and the third is a set of icons for a writer (David Gray, Lori, Valarie).

All these ideas are wonderful for reinventing your digital life through speeding up your work in a digital environment, by finding your files and folders with ease. This time, I’ll design a set of Process Icons! But, I find the runner up ideas really fantastic, and I’m seriously considering developing them into icons. I’ll keep you posted.

Congratulations everyone, and thanks for making this contest a huge success!

The following 8 icon ideas have been selected as the winners. Each winner wins the collection they have contributed to creating through submitting their idea. All the winners have already been contacted.

And the winners are:

Process Collection – 7  icons

• Annelie — sketches, drafts
• Mau Orozco — flux, in transition, traffic, stream
• David Clegg — overdue, late, urgent
• workerbee – dreaded report, urgent/important document
• StephenB — official, approved, final version
• Steve Robillard — today, tomorrow
• Edward Scott — safe, important

Bonus prize:

Sandy — medical (this icon will be added to the collection of Organizer icons)

A few other themes I wanted to mention was YodaMac’s suggestion for digital production, Calle Rehbinder’s idea for a set of media icons, Laura William’s idea for an events icon, Helen’s idea for a collection of icons for organizing the financial side of running a small business, Ian’s idea for a set of genealogy icons and Carla’s idea for icons around gratitude and envisioning.

Tags: contest, design, giveaway, productivity, workflow

Resources. Leather bound book with green apple.

Its time for a new icon contest! Tell me what you want me to design for you! If you could pick one icon, that you’d have an enormous use of, what would it be?

I’m going to design a new collection of beautiful and handy icons. There will be around ten icons in the set, based on the ideas of the winners who’ll get the collection for free!

This time the theme is taking care of business, whether it’s the administrative aspect of your life such as filing taxes, planning your next vacation, dealing with your budget or running a small business, it makes it much more fun and easy when you can locate what you need with ease! Adding beauty to your digital space will make these tasks more enjoyable too.

As an example, this icon of a leather bound book and a green apple with dew from the Organizer Collection is an icon symbol for “resources”, but it would also work for “to read”, “legal”, “stash”, “research”, “reference”, “writing”, “book”, “learning”, “teaching”, “nutrition”, “tutorials” or anything else you feel that it represents.

Which files and projects do you need to find with ease? What kind of files and folders do you create on a regular basis? What do your most important and favourite projects look like? It might be an icon that’s a metaphor for documents that need printing, receipts from online purchases or sales, travel expenses, itineraries, art and crafting supplies, invoices, marketing materials, there are endless possibilities! You can enter the competition with one idea for an icon and one idea for the name of the set.

I’d love to hear if you have more ideas or thoughts around the project, but to make it fair to everyone, your main idea will be the one that you can enter the competition with.

The deadline for the icon contest is in two weeks, Friday 19th of March. So take the chance to influence this collection of icons with your ideas and thoughts and needs. Win the icons you really, really want! Please comment to enter the competition.

Tags: contest, digital environment, getting organized, giveaway, productivity, workflow, workspace

About the Collection of Workflow Desktop Icons

The Collection of Workflow Icons bring an essential, flowing and harmonious structure to your desktop with a minimum of effort, by organically following your workflow.

Workflow is designed to give your desktop or design a graceful, timeless and classic look & feel, featuring a vibrant colour palette and wood textures that contribute to a fluid and natural design. The Workflow Collection effortlessly integrates a Getting Things Done (GTD) approach into your digital life.

Workflow Icons are part of a series with three collections of Productive Icons. Available collections: Organizer Icons and Creative Icons.

Buy Workflow Desktop Icons $12

• Inbox, full wooden inbox, to organize, to sort out
• To Do, wooden clipboard with paper, to read, to learn, to listen to
• Doing, metal gear, current, WIP, work in progress, ongoing, doing now, active project
• Pending, hourglass, deal with later, perhaps
• Done, empty wooden inbox, finished, completed, to archive
• Archive, wood filing drawer, archived
• Matching Wooden Folder.

Tags: digital environment, ease, getting organized, Getting Things Done, GTD, organized, Productive Icons, productivity, simplicity, texture, wood, workflow, workspace

Creating a desktop zen, will help you be more efficient so you can focus on your projects rather than feel overwhelmed by desktop clutter.

Customizing your folders and desktop icons helps 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 is from the series of Productive Icons, the Workflow Collection 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.

Color Code Your Folders For a Productive Desktop

Perhaps the easiest and most consistent yet flexible way to make your desktop more productive with icons is to use 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 instance by using blue folder icons for work projects and violet blue folders for personal projects.

Another method to colour code projects is to use colors to indicate workflow or actions. For example using one color 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.

Ready Steady Go Folder Icons are designed to help you colour code your projects. Think of them as a stimulus package for your desktop, and go get them today!

With a total of twelve shades of red, yellow and green you can use Ready Steady Go to indicate how urgent a project is. Red for urgent, yellow for medium or projects on hold and green for finished projects

To bring you even more options when you color code your projects using icons there are four more sets of Luminous Folder Icons:, purple, blue, pink and orange.

Support Your Workflow With Icons

For even more of a process inspired approach, you could use the Workflow Collection, designed to support your workflow with a minimum of effort.

An Inbox icon for your “collection buckets” such as your folder for downloads, a folder for brainstorming, urls, images and lose ideas that need to be processed. The to-do icon (a clipboard) for “next actions”, the doing icon (a gear) for “active projects”, the pending icon (an hourglass) for “waiting for” and the archive icon for “completed projects”.

Workflow Desktop Icons

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

Getting Organized On a Beautiful Desktop

Not only does customizing your icons to simplify work and leisure on your computer give you a review of your projects it also increases your productivity and helps you focus. As an extra bonus, using icons of your choice and taste as opposed to generic icons can make your life on your computer more gratifying, fun and beautiful. You are also more likely to keep your desktop uncluttered and tidy when you take the time to customise your desktop icons.

Illustrations with icons from the Workflow Collection. Folder icons from Luminous Blue Folder Icons. Olive green folder icon, amber yellow folder icon and garnet red folder icon form Luminous Ready Steady Go Folder Icons.

Tags: color code, desktop customization, digital environment, ease, getting organized, how-to, Luminous Folder Icons, productivity, simplicity, tutorials, workflow, workspace