With the possible exception of my desk, I do appreciate clutter-free counter tops, tables, and floors.  Leo Babuta at Zen Habits lays out how to do it.  Here’s his plan.

How to Get Started
If you’re starting with a cluttered home full of cluttered counters and tables and floors, things can be overwhelming. Let’s not try to declutter everything at once. We’re going to start small, as always.

I suggest choosing just one countertop or tabletop. Something perhaps near your doorway, or in your dining room or kitchen if you like. I happen to enter my house through my kitchen, so they’re both the same for me.

Now let’s get that one tabletop or countertop decluttered. Start by taking everything off the counter (or table). This includes appliances or whatever else might be there. Put it all in one pile.

Now sort through the pile quickly: things you love and use, things you don’t need or use, and a “maybe” pile if you can’t make up your mind about some items. Wipe the counter nice and clean, and put the “love and use” items back. As few as possible — keep things nice and clutter-free. If you have too many items and it ends up cluttered, find a new home for some of them out of sight, such as in a drawer or cabinet. Or make some tough choices and get rid of more things.

For the pile of things you don’t need or use, recycle or trash them, or put them in a bag or box to be donated to charity or to a friend who might need them. For the “maybe” pile, put them in a box, mark today’s date, and store it somewhere out of sight for 6 months — open it up after 6 months and if you never needed any of the items, get rid of them. This is a good way to deal with things you’re on the fence about.

At any rate, you should now have a nice and decluttered counter or table. If it still looks cluttered, edit the things you have, getting rid of some items and finding a new home for others until you have a nice decluttered counter.

This is your starting point. Your goal from now on is twofold: to keep this counter decluttered, and to expand your decluttered zone one counter and table at a time, using the same method as above. Once you have these surfaces decluttered, move on to the floors and then to drawers, shelves, and closets. But start with these flat surfaces.

Let’s look at how to keep them decluttered.

Keeping Counters and Table Clutter-free
This is the trick. Decluttering isn’t too difficult, but to keep things clutter-free, you have to form some new habits.

Let’s start with two simple rules:

1. Everything you bring into the home must have a home, and it can’t be on a flat surface such as a counter, table or floor.

2. When you get home and unload your stuff, or if you’re already home and are finished with something, you must put it away in its home.

These are age-old rules you might have heard from your mother: “A place for everything and everything in its place.” It’s a classic because it works.

So here’s how to implement those two rules:

1. Examine everything you bring home, and everything you’re tempted to put on your clutter-free counter (or other flat surfaces for that matter). Find a home for these things. For example, if you normally bring home mail and other papers, have an inbox for incoming papers. For many items, it’s best to find a drawer or other similar storage so they’re out of sight.
2. Have a spot for your keys, wallet, purse, briefcase and other similar items you always bring home. I prefer a spot near the doorway so I’ll never forget the items — I simply load up on the way out the door.
3. Now form this habit: as soon as you get home, put your keys and other items in the spot you’ve chosen. Do this always. Also put the papers in the inbox and other items in the spots you’ve chosen.
4. If you find yourself putting things on your clutter-free counter(s), figure out why. Usually this means you don’t have a good home for these types of items. It takes just a minute to find one. Another reason is just that you haven’t formed the habit of putting things where they belong. It’s simply a matter of focusing on this and reminding yourself until the habit forms.
5. Have a system for dealing with the mail and other papers so they don’t pile up. I like to deal with them immediately: open all the mail, toss the junk and envelopes, pay bills or otherwise take any needed actions immediately,  scan (or file) the ones I need on record. It takes a few minutes. Another good system is to do it once weekly. Whatever the system, do it regularly so you don’t get a big pile of papers.

These simple steps, if you can stick with them and make them a habit, will keep your counters and tables clutter-free.

There are a lot of us who would like to make an impact on the world, in some way or another. We’d like to make a contribution, change things for the better, improve lives, leave behind something positive.

And yet, with the vastness of this world, with the number of people out there who will resist change … it seems impossible at times. How can one person make an impact on the world? Normal people — those of us who aren’t in the circle of influencers such as elected officials or influential media types — just don’t have that kind of power, right?

Not necessarily.

When we think of the world as such a vast place, it’s overwhelming. It’s like sprinkling drops of our efforts into the ocean — the overall effect is so little as to be unnoticeable.

But think of those same drops of effort dripping onto one tiny spot, perhaps not in the ocean but on a rock. The drops of water, concentrated on one spot, can eventually break through that rock. And if that rock is supporting a lot of other rocks, those drops of water can cause an avalanche.

The same effort, concentrated in the right place, can make an impact. Diffused over a wide area — not so much.

Four Lessons in The Art of the Small
So our little metaphor — of drops of water falling on an ocean, or on a rock — contains in it four lessons that we’ll call The Art of the Small:

1. One person can make an impact. Don’t feel that it’s hopeless. You don’t need to be someone famous or powerful to have an impact. You can make a difference, you can change things — if you focus on The Art of the Small.

2. Concentrate your efforts on smaller and smaller areas. When your efforts are diffused over a wide area, they won’t have much of an impact. So focus on smaller areas, and your efforts will be felt more fully. It could take time for change to happen, but keep that focus narrow.

3. Try to find an area that will cause a tipping point. You’ll have the biggest impact if you can change something that will in itself cause further changes — the rock that causes the avalanche. This isn’t an easy thing, to find that pressure point, that spot that will cause everything else to change. It takes practice and experience and luck and persistence, but it can be found.

4. Don’t try to beat an ocean. You’ll lose. Instead, focus on small changes that will spread.

Learning the Art of the Small
This isn’t something you’ll always grasp instinctively, but you’ll learn its effectiveness when you put it into practice. Want to beat climate change? It’s too huge for one person to change — so focus on something smaller instead. Change your behaviors in small ways, help your children change, help other family and friends change. And teach them to help others change.

Start in small ways — help others, do little good things, and see what the impact of those things are. Never underestimate the power of putting a smile on someone’s face. That smile could change the person’s entire day, and they could go on to do something brilliant that in turn helps thousands of people. All because you did something small that put a smile on their face.

Sounds corny, but it works. Small things can have huge effects. Over time, you’ll learn to focus your efforts more effectively, but in the beginning, it doesn’t matter. What matters is you learn to focus on smaller and smaller things, and learn to be persistent.

Small things can change the world.