School Me: How do you Organize your Desktop?

[ElPaso]

I've had my MBN for a little over a month now, so I'm still pretty new with MacBooks and macOS. I feel comfortable working off of the desktop, because that's my comfort zone from when I had Windows PCs. But "Tips" is telling me that it's best to work off of Finder. How do you experienced folks stage your work environment on your MacBooks? Here's my desktop.

I will comment that all of my spreadsheet work (which is substantial) and a good percentage of word processing is done on Google Drive which is available through Chrome.

 

[avkills]

I try to keep pretty much nothing on the desktop. But I do use the desktop as a conduit for renders and exports; then I just move them where I want them eventually.

Sometimes for a lot of media exports I will make a folder for them all; then they eventually get moved to dropbox and/or uploaded to Vimeo or something similar depending on the client.

 

[maflynn]

Its all personal preference. There is no right or wrong way to setup your computer.
You like putting thigns on your desktop, great. Many folks like to avoid that and keep a clean desktop. I'm largely that person, at least for MacOS. For windows I tend to put a lot of stuff on my desktop - go figure. I guess that highlights the personal preference aspect I mentioned

 

[ignatius345]

I just let stuff pile up on my desktop. Eventually I get fed up and throw all the files into a folder called “Desktop stuff” or something. Then I repeat the process and make another folder like 6 months later. It’s pure chaos and I do not recommend it.

I will say, I’ve started getting a little more diligent about adding tags to files and folders and that’s actually made a big difference in being able to keep a handle on stuff.

 

[Sippincider]

Mine is an utter disaster with stuff going back years. No I do not recommend it. 🤪

Now, the important stuff is elsewhere, organized to probably OCD detail. But Desktop is a dumping ground that I really should manage better.