Something about spring and cleaning goes hand in hand, and it's not just closets and garages that benefit from the treatment. Your workspace, whether it's a home office or a corporate cubicle, collects clutter the way a car collects miles: gradually, without you quite noticing, until one day you can't find anything and everything feels harder than it should.
The physical clean is the easy part. Clear the surfaces. Throw away the dead pens, there are more than you think. File what needs filing, recycle what doesn't, and wipe down the keyboard, which researchers have found harbors more bacteria per square inch than a toilet seat. That fact alone should motivate the most reluctant cleaner.
The digital clean matters just as much. Sort the downloads folder, which most people treat as a landfill. Archive emails that are finished but not deletable. Organize the desktop, which for many people has become an abstract painting of icons.
What researchers consistently find is that physical disorder creates cognitive drag, a low-level mental tax on attention and decision-making. A clear workspace doesn't just look better. It actually lets you think better.
Spring only comes once. The inbox, unfortunately, keeps coming regardless.