Desk, housekeeping and Dot

I've just been catching up with Dougalfish's blog - she's written about her work space. I seem to be alone among freelances in having a tidy desk. Back in the dark days of being an employee, colleagues would accuse me of slacking because my desk was always spotless and scrupulously tidy. Apparently, if you don't have teetering stacks of files surrounding you you aren't working!

To me a tidy desk means a tidy mind. I cannot work in a cluttered environment. I find it off-putting. I'm fortunate to have a dedicated office space in which to work at Wordsmith Towers. I have a large curved desk and have maximised the available space by putting my PC tower in a sling under the desk frame and having a flat-screen monitor. A stack of in-trays sits in one corner, a lamp occupies another. And that's about it, apart from the phones, tin of pens and my Rolodex. I file everything ruthlessly. Besides, I need space for the cat, who insists on napping next to me while I work.

Talking of clutter, I spent a chunk of today doing some PC housekeeping. Once a year, I clear out email by exporting it to another drive on the computer. So today, every client I worked for last year has had all the 2007 correspondence shifted elsewhere to free up space in Thunderbird. I also took time to back everything up on my other drive as well. Better safe than sorry.

When I was finished, I sat down with a glass of something chilled and put the Archers on. I got up to switch the radio off at the end but Front Row came on and I stayed to listen to the very wonderful June Brown talking about being Dot Cotton (now Branning) in EastEnders. Tomorrow she will make soap history by having an entire episode to herself. Solo. On her tod. With a 30-minute monologue. Dot has always been my favourite character in Walford, she's well written, well played and well rounded. It's hard to believe I've been watching her for the best part of 22 years. She's done some cracking two-handers over the years so tomorrow will be a treat.