Software companies pay computer manufacturers to put trial versions of their programs on your computer.  While this is a somewhat effective form of advertisement, these programs slow your computer down and clutter your desktop.

There is a reason that the home screen on your computer is called a desktop.  It’s a place for all the items you’re currently working on.  On an office desk, no one likes it when there are a hundred different items and miscellany spread across the work area of the desk.  The same goes for your kitchen counters and table.  We don’t leave partially eaten food on plates lying around for days (at least I hope not!).  The same goes for your computer desktop, anything that’s non-essential will distract you.  Studies show that productivity is inversely proportional to the amount of things that are on your workspace.  That’s what Desktop Psychology is all about — keeping your desktop free and clear of anything that you don’t use.

In order for us to keep our desktop proper, let’s look at some criteria that define what deserves to be kept on your desktop:

1. Any program or file you use daily
2. An internet browser
   1. Word processors
   2. Email clients
   3. Documents or folders you refer to daily
3. Essential computer shortcuts
   1. My Computer
   2. My Documents
   3. Recycle Bin
4. Recently downloaded temporary files, such as an .exe file to install a program.  The reasoning being we can keep track of them and so we don’t forget to delete them after their purpose has been served.

Following these rules, there should only be a few items (the essentials) on your desktop.  Now how do we properly identify and remove the unessential items?  Again, let’s define.

Some examples of unessential items are:

1. Installation files that have already been used to install their respective programs
2. Files and documents that could very well be put away into a proper hierarchy of files in your My Documents folder
3. Shortcuts to programs that you do not ever use
   1. Your antivirus program. [It’s already running when you turn your computer on, no reason to have to click on it.
4. Preinstalled bloatware, or programs that you do not use anymore

Installation files are simple enough to get rid of.  All you need to do is drag them to your Recycle Bin after making sure that you do not need them anymore.  However, there are some rules to follow.  If you see a file that says something along the lines of “install acrobat reader.exe”, or an iTunes installer, then you can feel safe deleting that.  Any file that is the installation file of a program that you already know is installed can be deleted.

The second step listed above is to move files and documents into a proper folder, sorted away.  If it’s a Word document, put it in My Documents.  If it’s a video file, put it away in My Videos.  Keeping your files put away into proper folders and keeping them properly named will help you find them when you need them.

To get rid of shortcuts that you don’t need on your desktop, (ask yourself: do you use them daily?), simply move the shortcut to the Recycle Bin.   The program still exists on your computer, except now you’ll have to go into your Start Menu to access it.  Not a big deal if you don’t use it every day.

Preinstalled bloatware and other programs that you do not use anymore need to be uninstalled properly.  To uninstall a program from a Windows machine, go to the Start Menu and click on Control Panel.  Then click on the icon that deals with uninstalling programs.  A list with every program you own will populate, and uninstalling is as simple as highlighting the program you do not want anymore and clicking the “uninstall” button.

Propellerhead’s rules of thumb for uninstalling programs:

1. Never uninstall a driver.  Drivers are what allows two pieces of your computer to communicate with each other.  For example, your mouse needs a driver to properly communicate with your computer hardware, and your sound card and graphics card need drivers to communicate with the motherboard.
2. If you don’t know what it is, DON’T TOUCH IT.  It may be a driver, or it may be an essential part of a program you use often. My best example deals with iTunes.  When iTunes installs on a PC, it installs a few extra helper programs that don’t have the iTunes name on them, such as one called “Bonjour”.  Before I was a certified Propellerhead, I was cleaning out my computer and thought to myself, “Self, what is this program ‘Bonjour’? I have never seen that before, and I certainly don’t use it.”  Unfortunately, that program is an essential part of iTunes, and I had to reinstall iTunes after my mistake there.
3. If you haven’t used it in about a year, you probably don’t need it.  With everything migrating to online storage and management, you probably don’t need the same programs that you did 5 years ago.  Money management used to be done by programs such as Quicken or Microsoft Money, but now it’s more likely to see someone using their bank’s online system or websites such as mint.com to manage and track their assets.

After all is said and done, we should have a desktop that’s more or less like mine, shown here:

You can see that the only items on my desktop are a link to My Computer in the top left, my home folder titled “Reed”, the Recycle Bin in the bottom right, and a folder I’m temporarily working with, shown at the bottom next to the Recycle Bin.  I have a clean workspace that doesn’t hinder me when I’m sorting documents or trying to find an item. Everything is filed away properly in a hierarchy of folders.

Do you have any other imaginative ways to keep a clean desktop? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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