The Prince of Tidiness

Today is National Off Your Desk Day.’’ It falls on the second Monday of January, and has been "celebrated" since 1982.

Of course, this is not to be confused with “National Clean Out Your Desk Day,’’ which was observed by Atlanta Falcons Coach Jim Mora a week ago today.

I will observe this holiday, even though it does fall on Elvis Presley’s birthday, which should be a national holiday, if you ask me.

Professional organizers are responsible for keeping this annual desk-purging day in front of us. They figure they can capitalize on all those ambitious New Year's resolutions to be better organized.

After all, most of us have already put “getting organized” somewhere on our annual list of New Year’s resolutions. And it usually stays there -- until we lose the list.

We strive to rid ourselves of the spam of everyday life, those weapons of mass distraction. But it has its ways of always creeping back.

One of my favorite journalism professors at the University of Georgia was notorious for keeping his desk barricaded with huge piles of papers, newspapers and periodicals. He claimed to know where everything was, yet when you sat down in his office you could barely see the top of his head.

I will never forget the sign he placed at the corner of his desk: "A Cluttered Desk Is the Sign of an Uncluttered Mind."

Anyway, if you feel like doing some winter cleaning today, here’s a website with some good ideas. Clean off your desk!

If you find Osama bin Laden and Jimmy Hoffa, please notify authorities.