My home office makeover – Desktop essentials

_{Some items have been gifted}

When you’re running a business from home, what’s the most important room to get right? Why, the office of course! Here are some of the desk essentials that I just can’t get by without…I’ve shared a few posts over recent months about decorating my office with gold star wallpaper and adding plenty of storage, and my ergonomic desk. Now, I’m on to fun part – adding decor and organising everything. Okay, ‘getting organised’ may not seem like much fun to you but I really enjoy it and it takes away the stress from my working day, so anything I can do to make life is easier is my idea of fun. Here are some of the office essentials I need to get my work (and myself!) on track:

LIGHTING

I’ve been working in my office without a lamp for a while and I’ve found that I sometimes just need a little extra light in order to see what I’m doing in the evenings. This is especially true when I’m working on craft or DIY projects, so I needed to add a lamp to my desk for these tasks. I wanted my new lamp to look pretty and a little bit Scandi so I scoured the internet to find that perfect product. I found it on the IconicLights website, where this little duck-egg beauty was reduced in the sale to just £19. It has a USB charger port in the base of the lamp, which makes it ideal for using on a desk.

STATIONERY

The key to being organised is having the right stationery to help you. I went out at the start of the year and stocked up on notebooks, pens and a faux plant from Paperchase. I’ve found the weekly planner to be the most useful so far as it’s helped me to divide my weekly workload into daily tasks. This means I’m no longer feeling overwhelmed by my weekly to-do list. Instead I can pat myself on the back when I’ve ticked off everything I needed to do for the day and then actually stop. I think the weekly planner is especially handy for bloggers because I can plan out my content for the week, fortnight, month – however far ahead I want to plan – and then add in the tasks I need to do (such as taking photos, doing research, writing drafts) before I get to the publishing date. I’m feeling so organised right now.

I’ve also got a lovely gold notebook for keeping track of my ongoing project ideas and a pastel pink suede journal from PenHeaven. I’ve been meaning to start a journal for a while now but never really got round to it so I figured that 2018 could be the year. So far, I’m enjoying writing in it – even picking up the pen and putting it to paper feels really good after so many hours of typing on my laptop. I read a blog post by Victoria from Apartment Number 4 about her miracle morning routine and she included 10 minutes of journalling in her daily routine, which inspired me to give it a go.

KEYBOARD

If you’ve seen my previous office blog posts you’ll know that I have a sit-stand desk. This set-up means I prefer to use my Yoga laptop or my iPad as a monitor when I’m working at my desk and have a separate keyboard for typing. I already had a great keyboard but when I saw the new colourful range from Penclic I was like “time for an upgrade!” Can you see why? Yes, it’s simply because the keyboard is pink! There’s a gold version available too, so I did umm and ahh over the colour choice for a while. It turns out that it’s the ideal time for me to have upgraded, because my husband needed a keyboard for his device – so I’ve been able to hand over my previous keyboard to him and have a pretty pink one on my desk instead.

WATER

And the final thing I’ve added to my desk is absolutely essential. I need water. I’ve been struggling to drink enough while I’m working. Well, my kitchen is just so far away from my office (okay, it’s not) and I’m always working on something so time-sensitive that I just can’t leave it to go fetch a drink. So, other than installing a tap, kettle and fridge in my office, I needed to find another way to make sure that I don’t get dehydrated during the day.I get really tired if I’m not hydrated enough, and that’s no good – especially when I have a deadline to meet. So I decided this month that having a bottle of water on my desk will encourage me to drink more throughout the day. I found my ideal BHA-free non-toxic water bottle from Ion8. It’s leak proof with a sealed, lockable lid so it won’t ruin my desk or devices if I accidentally knock it over. Plus, I can undo the lid with one hand, making it easy to sip on some water while I’m making notes. I think that’s all the new additions to my desk – apart from maybe the tiny knitted cacti that I got for Christmas from my husband (they’re handmade by Chops and Doodles and Dotty Bag. My next project is to install some shelves into the tiny alcove behind my office door so provide some extra storage space so I’ll be sure to share some photos of the process soon.

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Some items in this blog post have been gifted to me and the pink links indicate a gifted product, affiliate link or information source. All thoughts and opinions in this post are based on my own experience and I am not responsible for your experience 🙂