Take a seat at my desk

I love having a nosey at other people’s homes and workspaces. It’s a peek behind the curtain and an insight into the normality and mundanity of life.

I was glancing around my desk recently and noticed how everything on it has a meaning to me and is there for a reason of some sort – often to support my ADHD brain while I work.

So I thought I’d share a pic of my desk and everything I have to hand while I sit here tip-tapping on the keyboard.

To set the scene, my desk is in my study and it faces a window which looks out over my garden, a field, trees and a hill beyond them. Behind me is a sofa bed, to the right is a bookcase and an armchair (aka dumping ground), to the left is a sideboard (another dumping ground) and a bookcase housing craft materials, magazines, podcasting equipment, family photos and a variety of other stuff.

The wall above the sofa behind me is what you see when you’re on Zoom with me, a wall of pictures, postcards, and craft creations – I always say I like to give people something interesting to look at when we’re on screen together.

Here’s what’s on my desk…

1. My laptop is the most essential piece of equipment for my business, everything is on here (and in the Cloud, I think).
2. Since my book, The 1% Wellness Experiment, was published I keep a (quite dog-eared) copy on my desk to refer to but also to remind me that I did this thing – I wrote a book and it was published and it’s out in the world being read. Currently it’s sitting on top of my friend ’s Time to Thrive journal which I’ve yet to make a start on. There’s also the case for my ‘Zoom’ glasses – I usually wear varifocals but these glasses are my reading prescription so that your face on Zoom is in focus without me having to tip back my head to look through the bottom half of my usual glasses!
3. A couple of fountain pens and my Thoughts of Dog page a day calendar which makes me smile every day. I keep the previous days’ pages to use for shopping lists or random notes.
4. The pen pot was a present from a friend and leaning against it is a little woollen rainbow keyring I bought in an artist’s shop in Brixham. I always have a glass of water and usually a mug of tea on my desk to remind me to drink during the day (otherwise it’s out of sight, out of mind) and they sit on coasters that were products from the stationery and gift business I used to run.
5. Currently I have a posy of sweet peas from a neighbour’s garden on my desk too.
6. My ear pods live on top of the timer cube because if they have a specific home the likelihood of me losing them is greatly reduced. (I apply this rule to all my valuable or important possessions – as long as it’s in a specific spot I won’t lose it but if it’s not there I haven’t a clue where it could possible be.) I bought the timer cube to help with procrastination but I hardly ever use it.
   There’s also a ‘Weirdly Normal’ badge I picked up at a talk by for his book, Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal, along with Lego mini figures of me and my dog, and a ceramic pot I bought from a potter friend which holds a tea light.
7. Stuck to my pen pot and my desk lamp are notes to myself like reminders of my values or qualities for when I’m having a wobble and a thoughtful note from a friend.
8. I use two mini suitcases my mother-in-law gave me years ago as a laptop stand for when I’m on video calls. I could do with getting a separate keyboard and mouse so that the laptop could stay on the suitcase stack and my posture could improve but I haven’t quite gotten round to sorting that out yet.
9. There’s a painted elephant ornament that I bought from my favourite local gift shop just because I liked him. A My Little Pony which reminds me of how crazy I was about them when I was a little girl, I find brushing and plaiting the hair soothing and it acts as a stimming toy if I’m feeling restless. And interlocking human and dog wooden figures which my husband gave me a few years ago to represent me and my beloved dog, Georgie, and since she’s gone my lovely pup, Bailey.
10. My Thought Depository notebook (my design) is where I write work-related notes I write by hand and want to keep. Underneath it is a stack of the latest Happy News – as a regular writer I get sent a bunch of copies to give out in my local area. I’ve already given some to the local branch of Mind I used to work for and these copies are going to the food bank I volunteer at.
11. For when I need an intentional distraction, a mindful and fun activity or something to soothe my whirring brain, I have a book of word search puzzles and a sticker by numbers book.
12. I sneeze at random things (aka allergic rhinitis) so there’s a tissue box in most rooms in my house. It sits on top of a paper calendar to help me plan when I want to write by hand rather than use my digital calendar, and a clipboard of old printed sheets I can write on the back of for random, quick notes.The windowsill acts as an extension of my desk so I thought I’d include what’s on there too…

     

13. A money plant a neighbour gave me.
14. A black and white photo of my mum and dad taken at our wedding 20 years ago, this is how I like to remember them.
15. An assortment of shells collected from beaches, a little dish picked up from a ceramicist, a clay spoon I made at a workshop and a piece of woven pottery I made as a child which my mum kept on her mantelpiece.
16. A snap of my husband and me before we were married in the frame I bought for it at that time, and a Lego Jane Austen model my husband was given for free as a kit when he bought me another Lego kit for my birthday.
17. And finally a spider plant grown from a little offshoot of my friend’s plant and an external hard drive which I don’t think I’ve used in years.

 

Many of these items have lived on my desk for several years and to some it may look like a lot of ‘stuff’, some of it childish, just cluttering up my desk. Taking this time to really look at what I surround myself with has been heartening because every item has meaning. Each object serves a purpose even if that purpose is just to make me smile.

Post and books may get dumped on the desk briefly but I consciously try to keep my desk looking like this so that it’s a clear (to me, maybe not anyone else) space that feels calm, soothing, where I feel comfortable and at home. I’m certainly not a minimalist, all the shelves and surfaces in the room contain stuff, but I do need my environment to be neat and orderly-ish or else it feels too much visually.

So now, as you read my posts here or meet me on Zoom, you can better picture where I was writing and where I’m speaking with you from 😊

I wonder what your workspace is like? Are there particular items on your desk that have special meaning or purpose to you?