I was recently presented with an opportunity to purchase something of a Unicorn binder for myself and I took it! Here is a walk-thru of my updated 2020 Planner Setup now featuring my Chanel Camellia Desk Agenda. For those of you familiar with luxury goods or the luxury planner world, this is a similar concept to the Louis Vuitton Desk Agenda and is something of a notebook or planner cover that can be used as a planner organizer as well. My Chanel Agenda is set up using my 2020 Master Planner Inserts bound with disks and some fun stationery accessories. I hope you enjoy!
ALSO, for those of you interested in this planner, I wanted to point out a correction to something I said in the video. I stated that this planner was calfskin, however, it is goatskin. This is a little different than calfskin or lambskin. It’s soft like lambskin, with a bit more grain, however, it’s more durable than calfskin because it’s more water resistant. Hope that clarifies it for you- I know in the video it’s hard to really see the leather so I wanted to make sure you knew the actual material!
I know there are not many setup videos for Chanel Planners & Agenda’s on YouTube and I couldn’t find very much information myself on the elusive creatures- but hopefully my video gives you some insight on them. The agenda I purchased is from the Camellia line and dates to 2010, but she is in immaculate condition in my opinion.
This will likely not be the last video I make on the subject of this planner- I’ve already started adding new things to the planner that after I filmed today’s upload so I will share those in future updates. If you have any questions about searching for rare or luxury planners like the Chanel desk agenda’s, let me know and if I get enough Q’s I’ll make a video or blog post to answer your questions.
In the meantime, make sure you are subscribed to my Youtube channel because I’ve got some great new content I’m working on as well as some new freebie downloads to help you boost productivity in your planner!
Let me know what you think about the planner and what content you’d like to see from me in 2020 by leaving me a comment down below!
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→ MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO
USE CODE 2020PREP FOR 20% OFF ALL REGULAR PRICED ITEMS IN THE SHOP!
I hope you had a wonderful October! You know I love October, the start of Fall and Halloween soo much, but November is the month I look forward to most of all because I love Thanksgiving so much. For me, November is a busy month, one with a lot of hard work and preparations but filled with a sincere feeling of thankfulness.
So, to help you get into the spirit of thankfulness for this season, I have some wonderful FREE planner inserts and downloadable tech wallpapers to share with you.
• 30 Days of Thankfulness Inserts in A5, Personal Size and a digital phone version as well
• Thankful, Grateful, Blessed Wallpapers for Desktop, Tablet and iPhone
In today’s video I am showing you how I clean my car and keep it organized. This is one of the essential habits I like to perform on a regular basis. Stay tuned to the end to see some of my car essentials as well!
Today I am continuing with my Productivity Myths series where I explain why some common productivity advice isn’t accurate and uncover the truth hidden beneath the myth so you can actually improve your productivity!
Productivity Myth #2: To Do Lists Keep You Focused and On Task.
The advice is pretty clear on this; make a to do list, complete the tasks, be a productive person. Hmm, more like clearly confusing, overwhelming and just plain wrong! Have you ever made a to do list? Grab a sheet of paper and write out all the things you need to do. Some of us can write tasks for pages on end, and then what? We just get started tacking this endless stream of work? Wrong!
To do lists are often touted as being the ultimate strategy of productivity. If you need to get things done, make a list of what you need to do and get started working. But this advice could dig you into a productivity hole if you are not careful and discerning.
You see, the big problem with to do lists is that when you make one, it likely isn’t prioritized or organized in any way to indicate to you which tasks are more urgent or important than others. Often, when we makes to do lists, our natural inclination is to start from the top and work our way down. Or we sift through the list and cherry pick tasks we think we can do easily or quickly just to get them off the list. But without a sense of organization, without a hierarchy that indicates which tasks truly are necessary and which are optional, we can fall into the trap of wasting our time on work that gets us nowhere!
It actually takes a tremendous amount of discipline and knowledge ahead of time to make a to do list work- which most of us aren’t employing when we execute on this false productivity strategy. Not to mention how complicated getting things done actually becomes when we work off of numerous to do lists or create a fresh list every single day. It’s like we are changing the game plan each time and not necessarily to optimize it. It can become a mess for most of us!
On top of that, did you know that research has shown that just the act of making a to do list makes you feel more productive, even if you never take action on anything on that list? So you can just make a list, and go take a nap and you just feel like you’ve done something even if you haven’t and then when the high of the list wears off, you are more behind than you were before the list was made. I hope you can see where I am coming from exposing the problematic nature of to do lists!
Finally, I dislike to do lists because I feel as though they often stand in the way of manifesting success from a place of ease and flow. Essentially a to do list is a step by step of what we think we should do or what we think we need to do to reach desired objectives, but as I explained in my post yesterday, that’s the hard way of doing things. Making a to do list and sticking to it, even as someone making a list with a high amount of knowledge and sense of priority, can still lead you to a longer road to achieving your goal.
What To Do Lists Actually Do for Your Productivity
All that being said, there is of course a vein of truth that does run through the advice and strategy of making a to do list, which is causing some people to benefit from the practice. Chiefly, sitting down and writing out a list of all the tasks and items you are storing in your mind is essentially executing on a truly productive strategy of brain dumping. Brain dumping, or a brain dump as I call it, is when you take everything you are thinking of and trying to remember in your brain, and listing it out. The practice unpacks ideas, tasks and memories and puts them in a more reliable and concrete storage method like a sheet of paper or even a digital list, which causes an instant sigh of relief for your brain. Despite popular misconception, our brains are not where we store information. They aren’t akin to the hard drive of a computer. There are intended for processing, like the RAM of a computer. Yes, you can hold onto some information in your working and short term memory, but as you learn new information, that old info is pushed out and lost. So, brain dumping relieves your mind of the burden of holding on to information. This is where the affect of feeling more productive comes from. It’s literally your brain feeling a weight lifted and redirecting energy towards fully processing tasks. It makes me think of when you sit down to watch tv and are still playing on your phone at one time. Your attention is split, so you aren’t fully enjoying either activity but you have a vague sense of what’s going on in both places. Then once you put the phone down and start paying full attention to the tv, you feel more focused on the show and may begin realizing there were things you missed that you need to go back to. That’s how your brain feels after you make a list. It has been paying attention to older information you are telling it to remember while at the same time trying to actively engage in the moment. So when the information is dumped out of your brain, suddenly it starts experiencing reality in the moment with a greater sense of focus.
Now, obviously, to do lists also work to help you remember tasks as well. Having a list on hand when you go to the grocery store is a great idea so you don’t forget what you went to buy. This is an example of the right time and the proper usage for a to do list. But these examples are few and just because a to do list helps you be more productive running errands, doesn’t mean it will help with productivity in other areas of your life.
So, moving forward now that you understand the myth of the to do list and how it actually affects your productivity, what I want you to focus on is how making and creating a to do list can become your step one in planning and organizing a productive day, but through the process of a brain dump. So, you can sit down and unload all the information you are storing in your working memory, but then you need to take some time to organize that information before you act on it. If you aren’t aware, the Charmed Life Master Planner contains an entire section of inserts dedicated to brain dumps where you can create your list and then using the structure of an Eisenhower matrix, prioritize the information by urgency and importance. From there you can integrate the more priority tasks into your day as you also functional plan to integrate them alongside other time obligations for a productive day. But never, ever, ever should you just make a to do list for the day and get to work on it… at least not if you are trying to manage your time and day productively!
I hope this information has been insightful to you and helps you to master the practice of true functional planning. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic and how you are using this information to benefit your life!
Lately, there has been a lot of stir in the productivity community about the link between happiness and productivity. Specifically, that measures of productivity indicate happier people as more productive than their unhappy counterparts. Although this point is getting a lot of attention right now, this is not new information by any means. A 2015 study conducted by the Social Market Foundation and the University of Warwick’s Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy, demonstrated that when a subject was shown a 10-minute comedy clip before starting their work, it resulted in a 12-20% increase in their productivity as compared to a control group who were shown no clip before they began working. This study has been cited over the past few years as evidence to support workplace practices for creating a more positive environment for employees as a means to increase their productivity. Now, all that is great and I hope that this trend continues changing the way companies treat their employees and the company culture that they create, but I don’t think most of us needed a study like this to understand the role happiness plays in our productivity.
One of the most popular questions I receive from my community revolve around how to be more productive with a long term illness, anxiety, depression or other physiologically related challenge. I think many women are keenly aware of how unhappiness has negatively affected their productivity. It’s hard to get your mind in the right state to be productive when you are not feeling the most confident or are experiencing pain or discomfort. Living with a regular challenge like that can absolutely become a mood killer that would inhibit your happiness.
It isn’t just physiological challenges, however that can kill your mood and therefore your productivity. Stress, overwhelm, comparison and unreasonable expectations really seem to be the number one killer of female productivity as far as I’ve witnessed within my community. This is why I’ve been working to integrate more metaphysical practices and principles into my content across the board. It is no surprise to me that happiness and personal contentment are the key to unlocking our productivity. This concept is woven throughout world religions, ancient wisdom, modern physics, and new age thought. You’ve probably heard me talk about cultivating a high vibration for yourself during your morning routine as a secret to success. I even designed a daily manifestation journal called the High Vibe Bible around this essential truth; your level of happiness (vibration) dictates your ability to succeed.
When you feel happiness and contentment for your life in the moment, no matter what goals you have set for your future, or what you have experienced in your past, you are creating a high vibrational set point within your mind. So, moving forward from that moment, as long as you are able to keep your level of happiness the same, or even increase it, you are programming yourself to work with a positive momentum, overcome obstacles with ease and you allow your day to flow from task to task through an inward sense of guidance where you don’t need to stop and pause to ask yourself, what’s next. Happiness, a high vibration, turns your mind into a receiver for right action automatically because this is our instinctual state of being.
Once you reach this state, which is apparently as easy as watching a 10-minute comedy clip, you are programmed into the mindset that I call “manifesting success with less stress.” This mindset is my personal be all and end all of productivity. It’s the mindset that programs you to easily achieve your objectives with minimal effort or challenge because you have kept yourself in the right vibration to receive a divine inward guidance for what to do and when to do it. An analogy I commonly use to describe this is that of a chess game. In chess, two players guide a set of pieces across a board in a series of moves in order to strategically “capture” the king piece of their opponent. Games of chess are notorious for lasting a very long time with players making a long series of moves in order to outwit each other. But, experts at chess who reach the level of grand master are able to play a lesser skilled player and win by making only a handful of moves. So, it is possible in chess for you to play against an opponent for hours on end, making countless moves in order to reach your desired objective (winning), or it could take just a few moves. The difference is in the mind of the player. In chess, it’s quite literally knowing the strategy of the game so well that you can win without all the time and effort that might be required of a less skilled player.
This is what manifesting success with less stress is all about. Understanding that whatever your desired objective is, you have two choices; to do it the easy way or to do it the hard way. The hard way is starting off with the mindset that you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you and all this work is going to be hard but that if you put in the hard work and stay focused long enough and sacrifice time with other things to devote more time to this thing than you will reach your objective. This is the mindset of setting expectations for what you think you should do to achieve your objective, and then working diligently to check off each step until your objective is reached. It works, most of the time, but it’s a buzz kill of a mindset isn’t it? Instead, what I am offering to you and what the study on the link between happiness and productivity is really illustrating is that there is an easy path too. When you shift your mindset into happiness and contentment, even gratitude and joy and then approach your objective thinking about how great it’s going to be when you hit your goal and how excited you are to finish your work, and what you can’t wait to do after all the work is complete- then suddenly your mindset is in alignment with the vibration of success for that objective, and like a grand master, you will instinctually know what the next right move is from exactly where you stand, and as long as you listen to the feeling inside that urges you to do x next, and as long as you keep your emotions in a state of happiness then you will complete your objective in far fewer moves overall. Manifest success with less stress. Get what you want with less effort expended.
Now, if you’ve been around the block with me, you may recall that I often suggest that if you are working towards an objective and don’t know how to get started, that the first thing you should do is some research on how to achieve your objective. I make this suggestion knowing full well that if someone is really ready to achieve that objective but are not yet in alignment with a higher vibration, that doing the research becomes the first step, the first action they take to put them in alignment with achieving that objective. Many times, when we go to do research on how to achieve an objective, we find information that confirms what we already believed was the right action to take. Isn’t that interesting? We already kinda knew what to do before we got started, but instead of acting on what we felt was right, we needed confirmation from another source. This is a very common situation people find themselves in when they are not yet used to being in alignment with a high vibration and don’t trust their gut yet! In psychology there is a concept called confirmation bias that is a tendency humans are afflicted with. This is the tendency to seek out and trust information that confirms what we already believe to be true. So, humans are programmed instinctually for this alignment, and when you take the step of doing the research on your objective, it aligns you to that objective and confirms those feelings you already had about what to do to achieve it. So once your done getting that confirmation you start to feel better don’t you? You feel more confident! You feel like you are better prepared to start and as long as nothing else stands in your way, your vibration is rising into alignment with your objective.
But, I assure you, the research step wasn’t actually necessary as part of this mechanism. All you actually need to do is get into a high vibration and align with your objective- make yourself feel happy and clearly identify what you want to achieve- and you will automatically start receiving insight for what the right action is to take! Then it’s up to you to trust that information you receive. Trust your feelings. Try acting on what you feel is the right thing to do first, and then next. See where it takes you. If you stay in the high vibration and in alignment with your objective, meaning you don’t change the objective and you don’t start doubting the objective, then you will absolutely achieve it quicker and with less energy expended than had you tried the hard way. It does take practice and mastery to get into a high vibration, especially if you aren’t the healthiest or most confident person, but with time you can build a new neural net of experience. Practically speaking, deciding to be happy and finding simple ways shift into happiness requires very little work and is something anyone can do. It does take discipline and focus to stay in alignment with a goal, but over time those mental muscles can be trained as well. So really, what we need to develop is the discipline of controlling our mind, not the discipline of controlling our actions, in order to become productive and successfully achieve our objectives.
Now, I realize this discussion may bring up more questions for you- specifically around the metaphysics of how this all works. How do we receive the information for the next right action and where does it come from? I will get into this idea in future posts, but for now I will ask you not to focus on any lingering questions but instead to focus on practicing the process I have shared. After all, I don’t know how my television works, but I know how to turn it on and change the channel, and that’s enough for me to use it to meet my needs.
Of course, I would love to hear what you think of this information and your experience with it. If you have any questions, of course also leave those down below in a comment so I can address those for you because this is truly a very important skill to master for productivity and I’m committed to helping you build and use this skill successfully!
Last month I ran a special in the shop where I bundled together the 2020 Print on Demand Editions of the Charmed Life Master Planner with a few extra goodies. The set included 3 awesome printable planner accessories; a set of planner tabs, a set of 2020 dated mini calendar journaling cards, and an exclusive sticker set design! On top of all that, during my Planner Peace Master Class, I made the offer even sweeter by throwing in the Master Planning Master Class for FREE! The Master Planning Master Class is an entire video class with a mix of lecture and tutorials intended to help you learn how to use your Master Planner as productively as possible and is usually sold in my shop for $97! But, for September I bundled all these epic planning and productivity tools together for an amazing price.
Now, sadly, that special bundle price has ended, but I heard from many of my customers that this bundle was something they were highly interested in because it was like a Functional Planning Starter Kit! So, I got to thinking that perhaps I should keep this as a bundle in my shop, for those who are interested in getting all the planning pieces in order for a productive new year! Of course, the price has shifted, but is still nowhere near the full $200+ value of the tools included.
So, if you are someone who has been looking for planner peace and wants, not only a complete functional planning system, but a great bundle of accessories and videos to help you get the most out of your experience with the planner, look no further than the 2020 Master Planner Starter Bundle!
Go ahead, what are you waiting for? Click the button below to get started with your new system today!
I know, it’s been a while, but I’ve got a new set of free downloadable tech backgrounds to share with you for the month of October PLUS my favorite monthly to do list of the year, 31 Things to Do In October.
Thanks for sticking with me here on my blog, and for supporting my endeavors all over the internet! I truly appreciate you and I hope these little gifts help motivate and inspire you for the month ahead.
Today, I’m starting a series on the blog where I teach you about a few very common productivity tips I hear people talk about all the time that I actually believe don’t really affect your productivity. Now, what makes these tips a little complicated is that they do happen to touch on some real productivity truth, but it’s one of those situations where the true cause of the improvement is being masked by the myth. It’s like the concept of an old wives tale if you are familiar with those ideas that have been handed down through generations that sometimes work and sometimes don’t. The reason this happens is because the concept being shared touches on truth but the full understanding of the mechanism behind it isn’t fully realized. This is the case for the tips I want to share with you today. For simplicities sake, let’s call them productivity myths, because that is what they are, things people believe affect your productivity but they don’t. Instead, they touch on a truth that runs deeper, and I want to explain those truths to you as well!
Productivity Myth #1: In order to be productive, you need to wake up early.
Long time followers of mine will not be shocked that I am starting with this myth. I have shared my thoughts on this idea before; that we need to wake up earlier in the morning in order to get more done, in order to then be productive. It’s not only a complete farce, but I actually think this concept has some very dangerous implications for our society, which, at least speaking from my perspective in the U.S., is already highly sleep deprived! So let me deconstruct this idea a bit for you so I can explain exactly how it is supposed to work, why it is particularly insidious and what is really going on behind the scenes that can sometimes make it seem like it’s working when it’s not.
So, the idea behind waking up earlier to be more productive is that getting a jump start on the day, by waking up before others in your house hold or getting to work earlier than your co-workers, will essentially give you more time to do things, and perhaps more uninterrupted time if that’s something you struggle with. Sounds good, right? I can completely understand why we would believe this concept. I think most people probably feel guilty that they sleep in too long, or hit the snooze button too many times in the morning. I know a lot of people in my community have come to me and asked for tips on how to complete more work during the course of their days, and one seemingly easy way to achieve this would be to just be awake for more hours of the day. Yes, if you wake up earlier and get right to work, you can theoretically get more achieved in your day, but eventually cutting into your sleep will start to show negative affects.
One of the reasons soo many people sleep in often is because they aren’t getting the right amount of sleep to begin with. They either go to bed too late or have a hard time sleeping so the quality of your sleep is affected. Time is a construct people, waking up at a particular time doesn’t have any affect on your productivity, and waking up earlier and cutting into your sleep time will ultimately harm your productivity and your health. I find that those who try to wake up earlier in the morning and cut into their sleep might start their day successfully and productive, but then end up hitting a wall of exhaustion sooner than if they had just used that time for sleep. Unfortunately, most grown ups don’t have the luxury of taking naps during the day when this happens, so they end up having to push through the rest of their day exhausted, and likely much less productive, all because they cut into sleep time. Sleep deprivation not only makes you much less productive, but it has some terrible affects we shouldn’t ignore to our health and well being, as well as to our attention while driving or performing other tasks that require focus.
The truth behind this concept that often makes it seem like it’s working, is that waking up and getting straight down to business (not dilly dally-ing) does have a positive affect on your productivity. But it’s a mindset shift, not an alarm shift, that achieves this. Also, there is something to be said of having that time in your day when you can work uninterrupted, and so I can understand why parents might be drawn to this concept. If waking up earlier to get things done before your family or so you can get to work before others is beneficial to you, obviously keep doing it. My caution is that you don’t want to cut into sleep time, however. If you want to wake up earlier, you need to get to bed earlier. You need to structure your day in a way that you are taking advantage of patterns and routines you see in your life and not wasting those opportunities. But, you do also have the power to create opportunities for uninterrupted work in other ways as well. Most people don’t set enough boundaries or take the proper steps necessary to ensure they avoid interruptions during their day to begin with, so consider starting with things you can change during your day first before messing with something as important as your sleep.
Some ways you can create boundaries to avoid interruptions would be to work with your office door closed, or put up a sign on a cubicle letting people know you are focused on deep work. Turn off your phone or close out of email. I love and have used the idea of putting an out of office message on your email to let people know that you check your email only at specific points of your day to set expectations. I also am a big fan of finding an alternate place to work, even at your office (like in a conference room) so that you can get away from your desk. Not all of these strategies will work for everyone, but there is no harm in testing them out. One thing that has always worked for me that I think most people overlook, as well, is how powerful it can be if you just have an honest conversation with family or co-workers on how you can manage interruptions. You never really know what is possible until you ask people for their cooperation, and I firmly believe that certain problems in a formal work environment might be a mutual concern that your co-workers may also be eager to improve.
There are a lot of different strategies I can think of off the top of my head to help you set boundaries to minimize distractions or interruptions at work and at home, so next week I’ll go in depth sharing those with you and elaborate more on some of the strategies I’ve already shared above. For now, I just want you to understand that you do not need to wake up earlier to be more productive. You just need to start your day with a sense of purpose and intention as soon as you wake and find ways to avoid interruptions while doing your most important work and it will increase your productive output for the day.
I do hope you have enjoyed this first installment of this series. I have a handful of other myths at the moment that I can’t wait to share with you, but I’d also love for you to share suggestions of tips that haven’t worked for you in the past, and I would love to evaluate those and share my thoughts on why they do and do not work in certain situations. So, please do leave your thoughts or struggles in the comments for me to address!
Would you like a simple but challenging routine to kickstart your productivity into high gear?
How does a 31 DAY PRODUCTIVITY BOOTCAMP CHALLENGE Sound?
The PRODUCTIVITY BOOTCAMP is an On Demand Instagram (optional) Challenge with a full month of simple but effective prompts that will help you:
✔︎ Get refocused on your tasks and goals for the year
✔︎ Improve your productivity through scientifically researched principles of productivity
✔︎ Create plans and routines that suit your life and needs
✔︎ Grow and strengthen neural pathways associated with executing and getting things done!
The Productivity Bootcamp is intended to be like one of those month long bootcamp exercise programs but for your mind. During the bootcamp we are going to hit reset on our productivity by challenging ourselves each day to take small steps through simple lessons and activities that will add up to big changes to our productivity. By the end of the bootcamp, we will be in prime shape to get focused on
I think it’s easy to forget that if we want to be organized, productive and successful, we need to work at it. Time management and execution is about so much more than having a planner and making a plan. Truly, it’s a mental exercise that requires daily practice to develop the mental strength and self discipline necessary to make prioritization, focus and getting things done second nature.
Just as following an exercise routine will help you improve the shape and condition of your body, nothing will improve your productivity more than having a simple (yet, well-researched) daily process to execute on. And having a community following the process along side you is the best motivation for ensuring you stick with it! This is truly the reason I created the Bootcamp, so that I could put all the research I’ve been doing on productivity into an actionable plan for others to follow, even if they were beginners to the topic of productivity.
The Challenge Includes
• A dedicated Bootcamp Resource Site Page where you will find all videos, downloads, additional instructions and support
• Challenge graphics for Instagram Feed & Stories with Prompts and community hashtag
• Daily Video Lessons explaining each prompt
• Extra download graphics and worksheets to make the most of specific prompts that you can keep and use as long as you’d like.
What Bootcamp Members are Saying
“The GTD Bootcamp challenge helped me make some big progress on projects that I have had on the list for over a year now. They’re almost done! Thank you Alexis!” -Becca
“Love the CharmedGTD bootcamp. It made me re-evaluate my plan proces and showed some missing links. Also made me realise that I need a different planner for next year because I’m more a monthly/weekly planner, than a monthly/daily planner. A lot of the other prompts made me re-evaluate my life, which was a welcome excerciece. Thanks Alexis” -Rianne
“I want to thank you for this idea of yours which seems so simple and exactly this feature makes it so deep and helpful. You’ve created small and bitable pieces that motivate to go forward and stick to the Bootcamp. And at the same time each prompt is a part of a puzzle so they altogether are the elements of the final productivity image. It has already influenced on significant changes in my daily routine and I’m really grateful to you for creating such an amazing system. I’m delighted to be part of the Bootcamp of yours.” -Anastasia
“Great accountability partner for increasing my productivity! Love the short, concise daily prompts, that allow me to go get things done!” – Lisa M.
Are you ready to hit Reset on your Productivity and Rebuild your Productivity Muscle?
Sign up for the PRODUCTIVITY BOOTCAMP TODAY and join the challenge!
I can’t wait to lead you on this month long journey and see all the ways you put your new productivity physique to work in your life!
It’s been FOREVER since I did a roundup of some of my favorite office related items, so to celebrate Back-to-Work season for the fall, here are seven of my absolute favorite items in my office that I would recommend you check up to up level your office space!
This laptop stand is pretty much a game changer for my desk! In the past I have used a few different types of laptop stands to help raise my laptop screen to a more ergonomic level and/or to save space on my desk by raising my laptop. I have always preferred laptop stands that are more or less invisible, either acrylic or super slim so they don’t impose on the overall look of my desk, and well, this stand is probably the most invisible of them all. You see, it’s not actually an individual stand, it’s actually a material based sticker that adheres to the bottom of my laptop and folds into a stand origami style. So, not only is this pretty much completely invisible on my desk, but it’s also a portable stand that is just on my laptop all the time. It’s super thin, made of a very soft microfiber material and actually quite strong. It has two main height levels, one that I consider my desktop mode and the other I use for typing to create a more ergonomic angle when I am not using my bluetooth external keyboard and mouse. It doesn’t really solve the problem of storage on my desk, however, as it is part of my computer, I can use it with other stands as well which is really nice!
If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen that I recently updated my desk to something a bit larger. While the new desk gives me much needed extra depth on my desk, one thing it sorely lacks is storage- it has none! So, to supplement, I purchased this 3 drawer filing cabinet to go under my desk and I am so glad I did! Not only is it great storage, but it’s on castors so I can move it around as needed. I have been using it as like a sidecar extension to my desk to take pictures, set up a separate little work station for crafting, and I even started putting my smaller tripod on it to help me get more creative angles when I film at my desk. It’s been so handy I actually regret not purchasing it sooner because it can absolutely be used with a variety of different desks to add storage and function to a workspace.
What can I say, I love cute cases for all of my gadgets and when I found this Celine inspired bag shaped case I knew it had to be mine. Really not much to say about it except it adds some extra heft and style to my AirPods which is useful for when I leave the charging case lying around to be able to see it. Plus, I just like all my cases and accessories to match my aesthetic and this is such a vibe on my desk!
I got the inspiration for this nite light style mini salt lamp from an Amazon favorites video from Allie Sevdalis so I take no credit for this find! I ended up purchasing a two pack of these lights to add extra ambience to my home; one lives in my office, the other in my bedroom. Salt lamps are said to have many different healing and cleansing properties, salt in and of itself is a very absorbing and cleansing element so I don’t doubt it, but overall I just like the look and the extra little nite light in my office in the evenings. If you haven’t heard me talk about this before, I don’t use very many lights in my home at night. I am a believer that it’s best to use lower lights or ideally candles (or fire light if you have a fireplace in your home) when the sun goes down as to not disturb the natural circadian rhythm of your body. This little nite light provides the perfect almost faux candle situation in my office for my moon lit work sessions.
Fair warning, this is not the exact acrylic paper tray I use on my desk but it looks pretty close. The one I have is no longer sold, but I absolutely love it as a fixture on my desk. At one point I had taken my acrylic tray and flipped it over to act as a stand for my laptop which worked out perfectly, giving my laptop some extra height and providing some excellent storage on my desk as well! Now that I have a larger desk, I’ve converted it to being traditional storage. I use the bottom tray for my planners and paper things and the top holds mostly makeup and accessories that have come to live on my desk. Again, I like when things on my desk are more or less invisible as to not draw too much attention away from the aesthetic of my desk, so an acrylic tray like this is perfect to add invisible storage!
If you run any sort of business or do social media for work or fun, this little phone stand is a must! First of all, it’s portable so you can easily fold it up and throw it in a bag with you as necessary. But, it’s also adjustable, which means I can use it to help me film videos for instagram and get that straight on view without having to hold my phone. Since it is thin metal, I have even been able to wedge it in interesting place throughout my home when I want to film or do a FaceTime call away from my desk. Of course I also use it to just hold my phone during the day and watch videos from my phone when my laptop screen is occupied. It’s a pretty functional little stand!
In March I upgraded my MacBook Air to one of the newer MacBook Pro’s from Apple, but with that upgrade came the loss of what I consider to be one of Apple’s greatest achievements in laptop design; the magsafe charging connector. If you aren’t familiar, Apple was I believe the first company to put a magnetic charging port on it’s laptops, which meant that if you had your computer set up and plugged in, if something got caught on the charging wire, it just popped easily out of the computer without taking the laptop with it. Well, when I upgraded to the MacBook Pro I have a feeling that this no magsafe was going to be trouble and I don’t know it this was prophecy or just bad luck, but would you believe that within the first week of having my new laptop, my dog Starbuck got spooked by something out the window, ran passed my desk, caught on my laptop charging cable and sent my brand new MacBook Pro plus half of the things sitting on my desk crashing to the floor. Luckily, Starbuck was unscathed and nothing broke, but my MacBook Pro screen did get a little scratch. I do have the Apple warranty that covers two accidental injuries to the laptop so I can get the screen replaced when I have time to spare it (probably never haha) but after I cleaned up the mess and caught my breath I found this amazing magnetic USB C charging cable on Amazon and promptly ordered two sets! It’s been a laptop saver for sure! No matter if you use an Apple laptop or not, if your laptop uses a USB C charging port I’d highly recommend this charging cable and magnetic port to protect the investment of your laptop! You’ll wonder how you ever lived without it!
I hope you enjoyed seeing this roundup of some of my current office faves! Hopefully this inspired you to add some extra organization, inspiration or functionality to your office or desk space!
I’d love to hear about the office items you’ve been loving so tell me about them in the comments!
