It seems we spend more time at our desks than elsewhere, so trying to make this place less boring, more personal and nice-looking makes sense, as it can improve our mood and productivity. There is no shortage of decorative accessories that can be used, but the tricky thing is finding the right balance between decorating your desk and cluttering it (we’ve all seen examples of half the desk being crowded with family photos or a dozen cactus pots, and have hardly ever been inspired by those.)
There are less chances of overdoing it when you don’t have a big desk – just pick a few spots where you can fit in something decorative, and that’s it. If you have a big one, try following the same rule, and replace the decorative objects by different ones when you get tired of them, rather than placing too many at once. Now, if your working space is already so small it can barely hold the necessities, this is more difficult, but not impossible. Here are a few desk decor ideas:
1. Pretty Functional
Take a transparent plastic or glass container, or a small vase of whatever shape you prefer (just not low, and too wide at the top) and fill it with something colorful or having an interesting texture. Store bought or courtesy of nature, probably veiled in pleasant memories of the places where you picked it – anything goes as long as it can fit in and you like the look of it. Your pencils and pens still can be held by the same container, so you don’t have to compromise on space or functionality.
2. Stick-it Monthly Wall Planner
Post-it notes are useful, but when your fridge door or your desk starts looking like a weird Christmas tree with a lot of those, you find it either annoying or ineffective, or perhaps both. They may fall off, failing to remind you of something, but it’s also the messy look of such sticky buddies that made people create more streamlined versions of task reminders which use vertical space instead of adding to the clutter.
Chalkboard paint and a variety of write-and-wipe items are easily available for turning walls into organizers and keeping important information in front of your eyes. You can actually mount a magnetic chalkboard onto the wall for both writing on and attaching something to. However, if you don’t want to make any holes in the wall, an adhesive version of a wall planner will work best. It’s also a perfect solution if there already are some holes or other unsightly marks that you hate. If you’d like something prettier than a wall planner next to your desk, especially at home, here is another option:
3. Coloring Wallpaper
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4. Small Succulent Planter
If you like cacti, they may be fine neighboring with office supplies and papers, but beware of unpleasant experiences when accidentally touching them while you are trying to grab something quickly or frantically searching for a certain item on your desk. Succulents are better for desk decoration because they don’t need to be watered often, just like cacti, but they also don’t hurt your hands. Some can even produce tiny flowers.
Since succulents are miniature plants, a small container can hold an entire mini-garden of different ones. A traditional ceramic or plastic flower pot isn’t even necessary, you can just take something like a small glass jar, or even an empty face cream container, put a handful of soil into it, and that’s enough for a few succulents to grow on.
The variety of lovely designs small pots come in is likely to make you want a cute one, but the decorative potential of what you can put in between the plants is even more interesting. You can add natural and artificially created stones, shells, beads, fragments of broken jewelry that are not good for any other use, and even tiny empty bottles of your favorite perfume mini-versions.
5. Lego Smartphone Holder
6. Photo Frames
Anyway, if you have already tried to place some photo frame on your tiny desk, this resulting in knocking it over all the time, you are smiling skeptically. Again, before you declare this impossible, try attaching a photo frame to the side of something you already use for holding and organizing papers, books or folders. This can be done using double-sided tape or sticky tack (an adhesive for sticking decorations), and smaller photo frames can be attached to a square – shaped stationery box.
More: Letting Go of Things That Hold Memories: 4 DIY Ideas to Try
All of the above are also nice gift ideas, or at least fun small surprise ideas, if things like attaching photos to office filing, folder and stationery storage don’t exactly fit your idea of a gift. Even simpler than that, you can make a plain folder holder box look pretty with just a glue stick and some colorful pictures cut out of magazines. Why not give it a unique design and surprise your friend or colleague? Perhaps you have some more ideas to add that make desk décor both pretty and functional?
Photos: Natalie Gontar