If you’re doing it right, work can feel on the best days like your home away from home. And in those cases, your desk is like your teenage bedroom in your parents house. It’s your home base at this home away from home, it’s where you are expected and encouraged to show off a little bit of who you are outside work, and its where you go when you’re busy and need your privacy. Above all, your desk should – like your bedroom – be a comfortable spot that you enjoy and that facilitates your best self.
1. Get a gaming keyboards – Gaming keyboard are tricked out with a million options, shortcuts, and key icons that can actually make working easier. You’ll save plenty of time at the keyboard, and it will allow you that little bit more of personalization at your desk.
2. Chew gum – Believe it or not, apparently every teacher who ever asked you to spit out your gum during class was working against your educational interests. Experts say chewing gum improves your concentration, so keep a fresh pack in your desk for when you need a quick perk-up. (But just make sure you brought enough for everyone in the office!)
3. Get some green into your day – No, not money. We’re thinking more a plant. Plants are the ultimate low-stress “pet” for the workplace. You can nurture it, watch it grow, and it won’t distract you with demands for walk time or to curl up in your lap while you’re working. You’ll even find yourself thinking about it once in a while on the weekend, imagining it sitting on your desk and waiting for another exciting work week with its best human buddy. Also, green – the color – boosts creativity, so it’s a win-win.
4. Get the light right – Windows improve productivity, and sunlight is a healthy necessity. If you don’t sit next to a window at work and can’t arrange to move your desk into the path of a sunbeam or two, go get yourself a light therapy – or SAD (seasonal affective disorder) – box for the next best thing. You don’t have to have seasonal depression to get the benefits of a 20-minutre SAD box session.
5. Multi-tiered trays for organization – You want to maximize space at your desk while trying to remain relatively uncluttered and elegant enough to fit in with other desks near you. Classic multi-tiered “in-out” trays are still a fantastic way to double or triple your space vertically and they offer multiple types of storage options.
6. Get a whiteboard for brainstorming – Once you’ve got a little space freed up, get yourself a whiteboard for easy brainstorming, organizing, and daily list making. Unlike a pushpin board or a bunch of post-it notes clinging for dear life to your cubicle wall, a whiteboard is easily refreshed in just a few seconds, and it’s not hard to get your mindset to respond in kind to the visual cue of instant renewal.
7. Get a standing desk – You’ve seen other coworkers use them, and they may be the way of the future. Sitting is just not healthy for creatures like us who were designed to be on the move hunting and gathering all day. Considering careers are long, and that sitting at your desk working is sadly no healthier than sitting on the couch watching Netflix reruns, you should look into standing desk options. (Also, as a bonus, they make you look really important, like you’re an air traffic controller or something.)
