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Len Babauta of Zen Habits has an excellent on Unclutterer on how to create a minimalist workspace. In essence, the best minimalist workspace actually involves using no tools at all, with only yourself and mind as your work “space.” However, since that is not possible for most folks, Len has a few tips on how to maximize space with minimum clutter.

1. Have one inbox.
2. Clear your desktop.
3. Get rid of knick knacks.
4. Clear the walls.
5. Clear your computer desktop.
6. Re-examine your paper needs.
7. Eliminate unnecessary tools.
8. Simplify your filing.
9. Go through each drawer.
10. Use a minimalist desk.
11. Clear the floor.

While most of these tips are most appropriate to folks who actually use desks for work, it can also apply to those of us who don’t. For instance, writers, bloggers or online entrepreneurs might be accustomed to bringing their laptops anywhere they go. So the trick here is to keep a clean, streamlined computer desktop with no clutter. I know I usually fall victim to a cluttered desktop, cluttered task bar and browser windows cluttered with tabs. And these are a few things I’d like to be able to fix so I can be more productive.

[via Unclutterer]

Lateral Action has a list of mostly free tools that creative types can use to boost productivity. You probably use many of these already, but in some cases there are features that can make the difference in terms of ease-of-use and efficiency that are just waiting to be discovered.

In the creative world, you don’t have to confine yourself to costly enterprise-level applications. Free (or really affordable) opportunities are available. In this article, I discuss my favorite tools to manage my clients and time online, and I invite you to share your favorite tools of the trade too.

These include Google Docs, Google Calendar, Gmail, invoicing software, time tracking software, and even IM clients. If you’re an online professional like me, or if you run a small business based at home or a small office, then these could be very helpful.

Many of us face the need to log into a single service with distinct identities one time or another. For instance, you want to access your company or client’s AdSense account, but you’re logged into Gmail. Instead of logging out of Gmail, you can fire up a different browser. Say, your main browser is Firefox. You can open IE for this purpose.

But with Google Chrome’s Incognito mode, life is now easier. You don’t have to open an entirely new application just to login with a different identity. Lifespy has an excellent tip.

Since it handles cookies separately, that also means that you can load two sessions of the same service and log in via separate accounts for each window. Well, this isn’t too different from launching a Firefox window and an IE window but at least you’re just running the same application.

You can even login multiple times. The fact that each of Chrome’s tabs and windows is a separate process makes it even better. Each session is distinct from the other.

Just be sure to open a new Incognito Window by typing Ctrl-Shift-N, or selecting the feature from the dropdown box at the right of the unified URL/search box.