Heard a conversation between my colleague and the boss

Boss: (saw my colleague's messy desk) hey, could you organize your desk? It's not nice to see when clients come in. You know what they say, messy desk represents a messy brain..

Colleague: (glanced over to the boss' empty desk) and what does an empty desk say for the brain?

I've been working exclusively from home for over 2 years now. I've been seeing several posts from people talking about adjusting to working from home, so I figured I would compile a list of tips I've learned over the years to help make the adjustment easier for some people.

1) Limit as many distractions as possible. WFH makes it much easier to get distracted. If you have roommates/family members at home, ask them politely to leave you alone while you're working. Make sure the TV is turned off, put your phone on silent, etc.

2) Take regular breaks. I find it easier to accidentally go hours without taking a real break from work. Try working in half hour intervals, and then taking 5-10 minute breaks. Read an article, watch a youtube video, grab some coffee/tea, etc.

3) When you eat lunch, eat it away from your computer. I often find myself eating lunch trying to wrap up fixing a bug, which makes it feel like I never really "took a lunch." Lately I've been trying to step away and do something else completely unrelated to work.

4) Get ready for work like you normally would. It's very easy to wake up, throw on your favorite pair of sweats and sit at the computer with messy hair half awake "ready" to start the day. Instead try doing your normal morning routine before sitting at your computer. It will help your mind and body go into "it's time to work" mode.

5) Keep your work area clean. I find it very difficult to work when my workspace is cluttered. Studies have shown working in a messy place tend to make us less efficient.

6) Keep your work area work related. Try to only have the things you need for work in your workspace. If you're working from your personal computer this can be difficult. I always end up with camera/music equipment left over from the previous night's photo editing/jam sessions. So try to clean off your desk when you're done for the night so it's ready for work in the morning.

7) Prepare for meetings. I have alarms set 10 minutes in advance so I can go from programming mode to meeting mode. During this time I'll go to the bathroom, grab a snack, water, mute all my email notifications, close any non essential programs, get my code ready if I need to present it.

Stuff is hard & stressful right now, but hopefully these tips will make it a bit easier. If anyone else has any good tips please share them.

Some people say my desk is too messy...

I think I just need a bigger desk. 😋

Opinions?

I don't know if we can be friend...

I don't like cable art, my desk is messy(no setup), no stickers on my mac, don't care I have to use mac or pc or unix, I don't code at night.....anymore, I don't have problem with ;

But....I love coffee.

I'm not a developer by profession and my home setup is always messy (where I develop personal projects) but I am an intern sysadmin so here is my office desk :) wanted to join the whole show your desk movement

Pardon me if the tags are not right. Im fairly new and mostly a reader.

There is nothing on my messy desk other than never ending work. Damn, I need to get something. What can I get,

* a toy : not my kind of stuff
* a bike : not enough room
* a small plant : hard to find in the dessert (uae)

Damned.

Hey devs, really need some help here. This is driving me crazy...

We're currently taking issues from the company via mail. We've got a group mail that goes to the three of us at the IT department. Problem is, colleagues just forward customers emails without event trying to help, which means that we get stupid issues like "I can't sign in", and no further information. We're currently using Jira, and I was thinking perhaps we can set up a Jira Service Desk? Then we could have an internal help desk where issues could be submitted, and require some important fields, and perhaps add a checklist. Have you had any experience with Service Desk? Do you think it would be a good idea to have a "normal" person have an account there as well to filter out the normal "Have you tried restarting your computer" stuff? Is it suited for non-developers?

Any other ideas?

Yeay, messy question, but I'm fucking desperate...

When you're talking about how awful it is and they think you mean your desk

I have an HP stream
this thing is a McFucking™ potato (and it's HP so i can't even get inside and replace the stock parts for good ones without breaking it)

Besides assorted craft materials and PC my desk has a dual purpose crocheted rubber duck: it serves as a pin cushion and my debugging friend! I made him and he has lived there since my first year of university.
I also keep a mug from my university, scented candles, notepad and pen (for all my tech savvy-ness, quick notes are still better handwritten) and whatever crafty project I'm working on.

My desk is honestly a mess (I have to clear it ~three times a week to have any space to work on) but they say creative people have messy workstations so I take my inability to keep an orderly environment as an expression of my creativity.

My colleagues desk is so messy that they have actually started to expand their mess onto neighbouring desks...

Their gym clothes are currently on the desk next to me which is actually behind them!

My obsessive tidyness can't take this!

Dr Robotnik has to be a java dev... Bloated, lazy, never leaves his seat, occasionally garbage collecting his messy desk

If you have messy and disgusting desk, messy and disgusting car, pretty sure your code is messy and disgusting as well.

Sincerely,

Your team who is fed up with maintaining your shitty code

I want to share my desk/battkestation but it's too messy and I don't feel like cleaning it.