Futile workspace cleanups

Working in an office environment where you enjoy the delightful company of 10 year olds in the bodies of 45 year olds teaches you two things. One, you don't really own anything in your workspace despite liberal application of labels; two, you won't find the stuff currently cluttering up your desk useful in about two months time, mostly because you will have the terrible misfortune of not finding them at all.
There will come a day when you will decide to take a stand, and with an overwhelming expectation that things will indeed, change from now on, you will take a smarter, more educated attempt at reclaiming the cubicle you call home for eight hours or more, five days a week. We're here to help, with the years of experience we've had of working in an office where the "initiation" lasts years and involves rubbing out the permanent marker stains of crudely drawn genitalia off monitor screens.
Do you "have" desk drawers? Do they lock? We suggest you use them. Valuables go in the lowest drawer, frequently-used go in the topmost, and the intermediates go in the middle drawers. Don't forget to lock it up, unless you prefer having your stuff moved around and misplaced.
Put your sorting hat on and weed out the unnecessary clutter. The common practice in most shared workspaces is the displacement of clutter: come in to work one day and you find a ton of garbage piled up on your desk, with no clue as to how it got there or who put it there. Here's a trick to figuring it out. If you share a workspace with three other people, randomly select a desk and dump the trash on it. Come in the next day, and if the trash is gone and dumped, it wasn't that person in the first place. If it stays there on that person's desk, it wasn't him or her either. If it has moved back to your desk, you have your culprit. Through this process of elimination, you find out who's to blame. Proceed to dumping all of your personal trash on that person's desk.
Irrelevant clutter makes your life harder. Throw out business cards that you will not be using in the near future. Save full contact details on your smartphone if necessary, to streamline your database of useful contacts. Old memos can be used as incriminating evidence against your  coworkers later on, but in the pursuit of a friendlier, less hostile work environment, we suggest you throw them out as well. Same goes with post-its, past notes, etc.  If you really want them around, scan them or take a picture with your smartphone camera, harness the power of technology to get rid of clutter.
Since its the new year cleanup ritual and it can be guaranteed that your clean workspace won't remain that way forever, do some decoration. Motivational posters, quotes, use your office printer liberally to lend some snazzy flair to your desk. Free ink, after all. Hang up your useless New Year's Resolutions as well, while you're at it.
Be sure to stock up on anti-depressants when you finally break down after enjoying two days of clutter free cubicle and on the third day it's all back to square one. We did warn you.