Ethan J. A. Schoonover at the Kinkless blog has just finished penning a series titled Five Steps to a Kinkless Desktop. Some of you might know Mr. Schoonover and Kinkless from the AppleScript mod he provides for The OmniGroup's OmniOutliner Pro, which can turn an OO Pro document into a powerful, though somewhat clunky, GTD utility (soon to be replaced by a full-blown product called OmniFocus).

Getting back to Ethan's five step process, however: it's more of an exploration of what's wrong with both some of today's software (i.e. - the fact that most browsers default to dumping all your downloaded files to the desktop) as well as our own habits. He begins the series with step 1: The "No Mercy Cleanup, with instructions on how to get started with a broad-sweeping gesture to get things started, and rolls on through the rest of the series offering tips and tricks for not only keeping your desktop clean, but more importantly: developing good habits for getting your work done.

For those who aren't interested in hopping on the GTD bandwagon, fear not: while some of his methods and ideals are inspired by the GTD paradigm, a crash course in Getting Thing Done just to learn how to get things done is nowhere to be found. This is simply good clean tips and tricks - sometimes involving Mac OS X-specific software, mind you - for tidying up your desktop, and then keeping it that way.