BLOG POST: Unconventional Neccessities At Your Work Desk

I’m saying this in second person, but really this is just a list of unconventional things I keep in my workspace. If you work at a desk — whether it’s at home or an office — it’s safe to assume you expect a degree of productivity from it. Here are some things that may help you along your way (it sure has helped me along mine).

1. A coaster. I’m a caffeine fiend (a caf-fiend if you will) so I always have mugs of tea or coffee or soda or “juice” (when I pour lemonade powder into a tasteless trendy fruit drink I impulse bought at the grocery store to make it more bearable) on my desk. This isn’t exactly a sexy item, but it’s handy to have. Otherwise you have to scrounge for scrap pieces of paper or notebooks and end up with a lot of unintended coffee stain art.
2. Gorilla Glue. You may be thinking “I would never get into a situation where I would need Gorilla Glue to be immediately handy.” You’re wrong. Listen to me. It’s compact and relatively inexpensive, so just buy a tube of it and leave it by the stapler. Trust me, one day you will thank me and yourself for having the incredible foresight to keep it around.
3. Dry shampoo. Sometimes you’re going to be burning the candle at both ends. Your hair shouldn’t have to suffer for it. Combat hair grease and that general feeling of disgustingness at the end of an all-nighter by simply keeping a travel-size bottle of dry shampoo on your desk.
4. Binder clips. Don’t cheap out and buy paperclips. Get some serious binder clips for your serious papers.
5. Sticky notes — make sure to get separate colors for doodles and productive stuff otherwise you’ll pull out a sticky note with an elaborate space station doodle on it during an important meeting with your boss.
6. Some kind of knick-knack situation to occasionally remind you that you’re alive. Mine happens to be a conglomeration of clever museum postcards, concert tickets, and aesthetically pleasing business cards arranged neatly on the wall facing my desk.