A favorite filing trick
To keep clutter off the desktop, think about filing by date. For those who don't have the gift of hyper-organization, sorting things by date can be faster and doesn't require creating -- and remembering -- that perfect file name for less-than-important stuff.
The Secret: it's amazing how infrequently you need to find the files stored this way. But when you do, all you need to remember is "when" you made the snapshot of that amazing logo/page layout/type treatment/color pallet/or that interesting PDF or white paper -- not "what" its name is.
- Set up a directory called something like Desktop_by_date and place it in an appropriate spot OFF the desktop
- Make an alias of this folder ON the desktop
- Give it an interesting icon
- Anytime the desktop gets cluttered, throw everything in a folder named with today's date, with year and month first -- as in 2009Jun4desktop -- and place it in Desktop_by_date
- Put the folder into Desktop_by_Date where it will arrange itself neatly by year, month and day
