Treat yo’ self: Work-at-home edition
Today I thought I’d talk about the treats you can buy — or steal from other rooms — for your home office.
After all, I spend a LOT of time in mine — throwing parties and such, mostly — and I have learned the hard way that it’s IMPORTANT to make it a place I want to be.
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| Missed the party? Check it out here. |
A really comfortable desk chair.
For the first few YEARS I worked at home, I had a cheap $40 desk and sat on a leftover dining room chair from our condo.
See how sad?
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| Oh yeah, and my office was bubblegum pink. |
I don’t remember why, exactly, but there came a point — a couple of summers ago — where I felt like I could finally afford a REAL home office chair.
I went to Staples with C and we tried every single chair to see which one was the most comfortable. “Price is no object!” I remember decreeing. Of course, it was, but I didn’t even look at the price tags until I’d tried them all and narrowed down my most comfy favourites.
Yeah, it was a lot of money to spend on a chair. I had heart palpitations at the time. But it was the BEST thing I could have done for myself — office-wise, anyway. It’s SO comfortable, I spend a lot of hours sitting in it, and it was an excellent purchase.
A proper desk.
See above, RE: my crappy $40 desk. It was life-changing when I got my handy husband to build me a custom L-shaped desk.
(Which later was expanded to a huge U-shaped desk that I really should photograph when it’s tidy.)
It’s messy a lot, but I LOVE it.
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Pretty notebooks.
I don’t have a paper dayplanner (Google Calendar is my ride-or-die) but I do like making lists, sketching project plans, or jotting down ideas on paper.
I have these ones and, oh, they are so lovely on my desk.
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| Kate Spade New York Extra Large Spiral Floral Notebook |
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| Rifle Paper Co. Tapestry Stitched Notebook Foil Set |
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| Kate Spade New York Spiral Notebook / Curious |
Software that will make your life easier.
I use mostly free software (like Google Docs, Google Sheets, etc.) so sometimes I get complacent and don’t think I need to pay for ANY software. For a long time — other than my monthly payment for Google Drive storage, and my cloud accounting software — I didn’t.
But recently I upgraded to a paid — yes, PAID — PicMonkey account. I held off for a long time, despite using it daily for the blog, because you can get a lot of the features for free.
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| PicMonkey = awesome! |
But it got annoying to accidentally click on an option I wanted that wasn’t included, and there were a few features that I knew would *really* speed up the time it took for me to make graphics. So I upgraded and I’m very happy I did.
Little pick-me-ups.
It’s important to have a few things on your desk that make you feel good when you’re working. For me, it’s my Vichy Thermal Water — a single mist to the face wakes me up when I’m starting to lag — mints, a bottle of water, and a pump of lotion so my hands don’t dry out.
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What are your favourite work-at-home treats? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Facebook!
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You might also like …
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| How to work faster from home |
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| Five ways Google helps me be a better work-at-home mom |
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| My top three tips for new freelance writers |
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Heather's Handmade Life 