As a Virgo, September and back to school time is my very favorite time of year. There was pretty much nothing I looked forward to more than back to school shopping growing up - the idea of new pens and fresh notebooks was super exciting to me. I was obviously a super-nerd, but I like to think this just makes me very qualified to own a shop that sells paper goods now.
These days, I get the same rush (yes, we're going to pretend "rush" is the proper word here) by refreshing my desk. There's just something nice about walking in to a clean desk in the morning - it's a fresh start that helps me forget that I definitely didn't finish half of my to-do list yesterday. Also, something about a week's worth of dirty coffee mugs bearing inspirational messages strewn about is just a bit too ironic for me.
With this in mind, I curated our biggest collection ever of fun things to keep your desk fun and fresh this year. Whether beautiful, colorful accents get you going or you prefer neutral, understated things on your desk or you appreciate a little quirk while you work, we've got you covered (and then some, if we're being real).
Some of my favorites include our bold colored Italian staplers (if a good, heavy, satisfying, utilitarian tool is your thing, these check all the boxes - if that doesn't sound appealing to you, go ahead and reread it. It's the perfect stapler!), simple neutral photo frames (no one will judge if you just frame photos of George Clooney instead of friends and family, I swear), and our hexagon color blocked table tile coasters (your motivational coffee mug will thank you).
At my office in the back of the Collingswood shop, one of our super talented employees is just about finished painting a big custom wall mural behind my desk. I wanted a statement in the space, since it's situated between the shop and our warehouse and contains exactly zero windows.
I'm obsessed with the results (I seriously love it more than any wall I've ever loved... and I went to school for architecture, so I think about walls quite a bit... which I realize is a strange thing to boast about...).
In any case, the mural has a lot going on, so I want to keep things on my desk pretty streamlined and minimal so it's not overwhelming. Pro tip: overwhelming is not a word anyone uses to describe their dream workspace.
At the end of the day, we all want to make work feel a little less like work (right? Right.) and short of trying to get your boss to approve Martini Mondays, refreshing your desk is the best way to accomplish this.
Just because you've used that chipped promotional mug as a pencil holder for 8 years doesn't mean you have to live with it forever. The little things you look at every day should make you smile! If it wasn't reasonably easy to achieve at least a moderately nice workspace, they wouldn't pop up all over the internet. Pro tip: People are generally lazy, and making a pinterest-worthy desk is easy even for the laziest of us.
