This is part two of a five part series on how to clean up, prettify and streamline the usage of your desktop. You can also start with the introduction.

You can start with the article below or jump to the video:

Now that your desktop is in its most natural denuded state, it’s time to try and stop the seemingly inevitable build up of new stuff. Our trick is going to be applying good real-world habits to your computer’s desktop.

After the first part of this series was posted I received several comments and reminders of Merlin Mann’s excellent post on his Email DMZ folder technique. This reminds me again that a lot of the basics of desktop management have already been tackled in programs where there is a high volume of incoming material, such as email. There we have an inbox, and outbox, long term storage folders, etc. But few of us really apply this thinking to the desktop, so in this article we’ll be doing just that.

If you’ve worked with GTD you’ll know the importance of the inbox (and, of course, the importance of emptying it). Even if you are not part of the GTD cult fan club, its utility should be clear. Actually, it’s kind of surprising that Inboxes and Outboxes are de rigeur in many high traffic applications (mail.app), but not on the desktop.

So right away we’ll create two new folders:

Inbox and OutboxInbox and Outbox

Inbox – for all incoming items

Outbox – shockingly, for all outgoing items.

Importantly, items you save to the Outbox must be things that don’t need to be saved to the long term archive (quick variations on JPEGs, PDF outputs of text documents, etc. that you’ll throw away immediately).

Similarly, the Inbox is for things you don’t have a chance to intercept and save into your archive or which will be deleted after use (dmg’s, for example).

Before we take another step, stop drop and roll. Done? Get up, dust off. There was no point to that. I just wanted you to roll around a bit. Always good to shake up your routine with a nice roll.

What we really need to do now is stop Safari, Firefox, Adium, Skype and every other application that downloads stuff from crapping all over your spotless desktop like a flock on incontinent pigeons. Open up your browser, IM client and anything else that frequently downloads online goodness and point it to default download to the Inbox folder you just created. For example:

Settings for Safari DownloadsSettings for Safari Downloads

Settings for FirefoxFirefoxSkype SettingsSkypeAdium SettingsAdiumSettings for iChatSettings for iChat

Next I’m going to create a shortcut to my main documents directory. Since we removed the hard disk icons on the desktop, we’ll probably want a way to quickly navigate into our long term documents storage area. For a lot of you that might be your “documents” directory. I don’t use that anymore because a lot applications like Microsoft Office pollute the ~/Documents directory with files that should have been saved in “Application Support”. So I use a new directory in my Home directory named “Archive” where I keep all long term reference materials. It’s my file cabinet.

Inbox, Outbox, Archive AliasInbox, Outbox, Archive Alias

So we just create an alias to that directory by Command-Option dragging it to my desktop.

Finally, whenever I need to work on something frequently during the week, I like to have easy access to it without drilling down into the lower levels of my Archive. For long term work, I may add a shortcut in the finder or pathfinder sidebar, but for short-term work I want access to this material on my desktop, but in an organized manner.

PendingPending

So one last folder: Pending. I’ll Command-Option drag folders or files into this Pending folder that I need to access regularly during short term project work.

Finder View SettingsFinder View Settings

Finally, let’s keep these in line by telling Finder (or Pathfinder) to keep them in order according to kind. We’ll also tell finder to show the number of items in the folder:

Pathfinder View SettingsPathfinder View Settings

In Pathfinder, we tell it to smart sort as well as “keep arranged”.

Those of you that saw my last screencast will have noticed and “xChange” folder… this is a universally synchronized folder among all my machines, including my wife’s laptop and our home “server” (a heartbreakingly earnest mac mini). I’ll detail more about that set up in another article as its set up is a bit elaborate.

Kinkless Desktop Part 2: Fight Desktop Entropy

Continue with Part 3. Aesthetic Computing and Usability