The other day I looked into Bella’s room to make sure she was doing her homework. I saw her kneeling on the floor using her chair as a table top. I wondered why she wasn’t using her desk until I took a look at it. It was so messy there was no room to write. She said she just cleaned it last week and doesn’t know why it was so messy again. I told her that she can’t just clean it once. She had to straighten it out every day so things don’t accumulate and look like a disaster area. She agreed and started cleaning.
I then walked over to my desk to check something online and ate my own words since my once clean desk looked something like this.

My desk area is my little sanctuary/work center but more often than not I cannot even see the surface of it beneath all the mess. I am trying to make it a habit to take a few minutes each evening and put away the stuff that always accumulates there over the course of the day.
Since I always have numerous piles of papers or projects that I am working on I bought these pretty file folders at Barnes and Nobles to sort and label the piles.

For Christmas I received this cute file folder that I wanted. I keep all our important papers and documents in it. I told Brian that if there is a fire in the house grab the kids first then grab the file. (Which makes me think, what if there is a fire while we are gone? Maybe I should scan those papers and store them online?)

I use these matching mesh pouches to hold pens, stickers/envelope seals and other desk supplies.

So my desk is once again pretty and every night (hopefully) Bella and I will be making sure our desk areas are kept that way.