Is your desktop overcrowded with too many icons? That’s counterproductive and impractical. Icons overlap each other, and you waste time finding the right shortcut in a cluttered desktop. And if you’re into aesthetics, having so many icons beats the purpose of a beautiful background. Don’t leave your desktop out of control—clean it up!
Delete the unnecessary shortcuts and move the files
Let’s cut to the chase and deal with the shortcuts. These are your nifty little icons that let you launch or open your files and programs without going to their actual directory in your computer. You probably use maybe two or three applications, such as your browser and word processor, on a frequent basis. Keep their shortcuts on the desktop while deleting the rest. Don’t worry; deleting shortcuts won’t uninstall the programs at which they point. If you ever need to run these other programs, you can easily do so via the Start menu. You can always create those shortcuts again if need be.
It’s understandable that you may want to leave files on the desktop. It’s a convenient temporary storage that way. But in the long run, you should move your files to a more appropriate location. Move your business reports to the Documents folder, your beach outing snapshots in the Pictures folder, and so on.
Arrange, resize and group desktop items
Now that you’ve cleared some of the clutter at this point, you need to organize the remaining stuff. Right-click an empty area, select View and enable these two options:
Auto arrange icons – as the name suggests, this automatically arranges your icons in columns, starting at the left portion of the desktop
Align icons to grid – arranges the icons in a grid pattern to prevent icons from overlapping
The View menu also lets you change the size of the icons, which you can also do by rolling the mouse wheel while holding down the Ctrl key. Below the View menu is the Sort by, which rearranges the desktop items according to name, size, item type and date modified.
For better organization, you should place desktop items into folders to separate them according to function. Alternately, you can use third-party applications like Fences or the Stacks Docklet add-on for RocketDock to segregate items into different sections.
Choose a better background
Finally, you should use a background picture that encourages productivity. Pictures that aren’t provoking and have no distracting elements are recommended choices. Even the dominant color in the desktop background matters, according to a study published in the Science journal.
