Desk Declutter for Dummies

Cleaning up your hobby desk is the literral worst.

You lose precious hobby time, it's boring and more often than not, it gets messy again 3 days later.

The.  Worst.

But no more.

Declutter for Dummies.

To do this, we have a two-prong approach:

1- Be Gone

2- Stay Gone

To paraphrase words of wisdom from Denis Rodman:  The best defense against a messy  desk is offense.

1- Be Gone

The reason things get messy real quick is because everything is accessible, even if it shouldn't be.  Things you use once every 2 months stay on your desk "because I will need that real quick" or because " let's just do this now, it will take a second".  The mere thoughts of the sort is evil and should be treated as such.

Some things, like hardcore assembly tools, green stuff, sprues and bits don't need to be at arms length all the time.  The same goes for basing materials, or terrain building supplies.  Or 460 different pots of paint for that matter.


Like, why the primer, or the full set of oil paints? Or 3 water pots? Literally 0 point to this.

So grab big ass boxes and throw unceremoniously things in there.  You can divide in 3-4 different boxes with themes, like:  Terrain, Assembly, Paint and Bits.  Not 75 boxes.  3 or 4.  5 tops, if you have like 7 different airbrushes and a buttload of doodads to go with them.

What you keep ?  The basics:

Assembly:
Hobby Knife,
Clippers
Glue

Painting:
Paint brushes ( Again, you don't know the 32 super big and destroyed brushes for terrain )
Couple of paint pots relevant to your current project.   No, you probably don't need 54 shades of blue if you're painting Nurgle Daemons

Water Pot,
Paper towel and palette

Your compressor and airbrush ( or like 2 airbrushes if you have multiple, like 1 large spray and a smaller spray )

The. End.

But what about my...

But I can't...

THE. END.

This minimalistic approach to keeping the bare minimum is abusing our laziness.  If stuff is not easy to access, you'll wait for a worthwhile occasion to take it out.

2- Stay Gone

Now the hard part here is to keep this uncluttered space uncluttered.  Cycle through what you use between projects, don't add stuff to the pile.

Now this seems rather intuitive, but it's not.  It's how you end up from this:

To this:


The best way, I find is having some for or organisation.  Which bring me to my next point:  cool useful toys!

Useful desk organiser doodad #1, brought to you by my roomamte's  " Oooooooh I want one for my makeup!"


Ohuhu Acrylic Makeup Cosmetics Organizer 3 Drawers with Top Section, 9.4 by 7.5- Inch, Transparent

This thing is solid, fits everything you need handy and keeps the clutter away.  Doesn't fit in the fancy cabinet, doesn't belong on the desk.

The next cool doodad is a great bitz and terrain accessory box:




You can fix those on a wall, or stack them and use as a boxes with easy sorting up.  These are a lot more practical than plain old boxes and much more likely to keep your clutter away.

And last but not least, a paint organiser.  These things are really hard to shop for, because everyone has a different ideal on where to put paints.  Some want wall mount, some desk mount, some want horizontal shelving, other vertical.  So you might shop around, or get these, which are convenient and incredibly affordable.


Acrylic Nail Polish Varnish Small 3-Tier Display Stand Beauty Organiser by Kurtzy TM

It offers 3 rows that fit any type of pain pots.  Again, picking a rack that isn't too big is the ket here.

Until next time,
No excuses; hobby like a champion!