7 Desk Secrets to Keep You Sane During the Work Day

Sometimes, the hours between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. seem to extend for years. Instead of counting down the seconds until the end of the day, you might make a few minutes go by faster by organizing your desk drawers and adding a few goodies that will help you stay sane during the work week.

The following items are unendingly useful in the eternal war against boredom ― and if you have to, you can stash them in your drawers so no one will ever know your sanity-preserving secrets.

Non-Perishable Snacks

Every health magazine in existence will surely tell you that snacking at work is a bad, bad idea. It’s true: If you abuse your desk snacks, you may come to regret it. However, if you save your snacks for truly dreadful days (especially during the dolorous hours between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.), you probably won’t be any worse for wear. Plus, not all non-perishable snacks are fitness-busters. You should try filling a drawer with Nature’s Path bars, Manitoba Harvest bites, or any type of fruit-and-nut trail mix.

Travel-Sized Hygiene Products

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There is nothing quite like that sensation that comes right after your daily hygiene routine; you feel clean, happy, and invincible. With the right products at your desk, you can replicate that feeling at work. Most hygiene products come in handy travel sizes that fit nicely in the smallest desk drawer. You can transform your workstation into a veritable vanity with tiny deodorant, oil-removing face wipes, a hairbrush, a toothbrush, and toothpaste. However, you should probably do your preening in the restroom if you don’t have a private office.

Tech Chargers and Accessories

Hardly ever have you encountered pain more acute than when you can’t use your precious mobile devices away from home. Seeing that last 1 percent of battery life blink away hurts the soul, especially during a boring day at work. That’s why you should stash a spare charger somewhere deep in your desk. A bonus piece of advice: You should avoid advertising your charger around the office, or you might never see it again.

Other tech accessories are equally as useful. If your charger does not end in a USB plug, you might also add a connection cable to your cache so you can use your work computer to add and remove files from your mobile devices. Headphones are also an absolute must ― but you should try to find discreet earbuds that don’t catch the attention of your boss.

Puzzles

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Puzzles are a good way to exercise your brain while giving it a break from the regular stresses of your job. Those in book form, like crosswords or Sudoku, fit neatly into your desk drawer, and they usually provide a standard duration so you know exactly how long your break will be. However, if pencil games aren’t your style, you can also hide physical puzzles in your drawers, like Rubik’s cubes or other mechanical puzzles.

Cute Cover-Ups

Every workplace is different, except for one universal fact: Offices are cold. For some unknown reason, companies prefer to keep their employees slightly chilled. Unfortunately, for some workers (usually of the female variety) low indoor temperatures make work impossible. Therefore, you should be prepared for when the thermostat sinks into the low-60s with warmer ware for a variety of work outfits. At the very least, you should keep a simple cardigan, a heavy sweater, and a chic blazer neatly folded in your largest desk drawer.

First Aid

By law, your office has to have a rather well-stocked first aid kit in case of emergency, but the items in your office’s medicine cabinet probably aren’t what you might need after an ordinary workplace injury. To treat the more typical office malady, you should have in your desk pain killers, blister bandages (for when you accidentally wear those shoes), feminine hygiene products, and more pain killers. Then, you’ll feel good no matter what the work day throws your way.

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