I spent the past long weekend – not cafe hopping, but de-cluttering and re-organizing the mess that my desk has become over the years.

You see, I’m a firm believer that your environment affects your efficiency. No one likes halting their creative process just to find an errant notebook or make space on their work space among all the clutter .. which was pretty much my situation until I finally decided: enough is enough!

So here’s what I did with my desk, using one of my favourite brands – Muji.

I didn’t take any “before” shots because just looking at the *mess* made me cringe and want to get it over and done with as soon as possible, but here’s a picture of my Hall desk circa 2013 for visualisation (trust me, it’s pretty close):

“Organized chaos” was the theme I had going on in my final year. I was also into the whole “stick random photos, postcards and posters over every surface imaginable” trend. Shudders. 

SO. For project overhaul my desk, these were the rules:

1. There must be a place for everything I need.
2. My most used items must be the most accessible; i.e. at the front of the drawer.
3. Nothing should spill over.
4. Everything should be easy to retrieve.
5. Only the absolute essentials on my desk top – laptop, tissue paper, and my go-to bag for work.

One of the most important things when it comes to storage is creating a space within a space for everything – so nothing spills over (see point 3) and you shouldn’t have to wrangle with stray cables whenever you want to take something out. For my drawers, I used various sizes of Muji’s Abs Tray ($11.90 – $19) as partitions.

Since I tend to sit toward the left side of my desk, my hard disks, charging cables, and notebooks for jotting down ideas went into my first drawer. My iPad Mini which I use occassionally went in there too.

Travel keep sakes, cards, and random knick knacks went into my second drawer. Not pictured are my thumbdrives, spare memory cards and my Nintendo DS cartridges.

I originally intended to store my laptop in the third drawer, but ended up using it for my Rurouni Kenshin artbooks and special release manga. Better than letting my favourite manga and movie series collect dust at the back of my cupboard!

My accessories were another daily headache – I have about a gazillion rings, bracelets, and hair bands!

Ring cones are a nice way of displaying ’em rings, but since I have so many different sized rings, I got Muji’s Acrylic Stand with Partation ($29). I love how the clear material makes everything look real classy.

It comes with square-shaped sections, but I removed some of the sliders to fit other things like my favourite bangles, hair bands, etc. Other bangles went around an old glass bottle (not pictured) – a neat trick I came across on Pinterest!

So there you have it: my lil weekend project decluttering my life with Muji’s nifty storage items. You can also get cheaper options at Daiso and such.

I also started a Pinterest board specially for keeping things organized. Feel free to check that out, too!

Muji Singapore Online Store 
Pinterest board (follow me!)

chueonit.