Post 11 in the series: Recommended Productivity Tools

Chairs
Get a good chair. Depending on how desk-dependent your job is, you may be in your chair six, eight, or more hours a day. It does not make sense to merely get a chair that you can “get by” with. Get a chair that is ergonomically correct and which you enjoy using.

At the other extreme, I’m not recommending that anyone go out and buy an $800 Herman Miller chair. There are some decent middle-of-the road options that I think strike a good balance.

Here’s the chair I prefer:

It looks a bit like a Herman Miller chair, but it’s not. It’s available at Office Depot and is called the “Realspace PRO™ Quantum Recycled Mesh Mid-Back Task Chair.” That’s a mouthful. And the name actually continues: “40 1/2″H x 30 3/10″W x 26 1/5″D, Black Frame, Black Fabric.”

It costs way less than a Herman Miller, but still costs more than most of the other options at Office Depot. Here’s the way I look at it: This chair ought to last me at least eight years–probably much longer. Let’s assume eight years, though. Working 260 days per year, that’s 2,080 working days. That puts the cost at 12.5 cents per day.

Having a chair that works well, is fully adjustable, and that I like to be in is worth 12.5 cents per day.

Waste Baskets

Waste baskets don’t have to be ugly. Here’s the one I have in my office at home:

I like it because the color and wire mesh style fit the rest of the style of my office. The governing principles for productivity tools in general also apply here: if you are going to have a waste basket anyway, you may as well get one that contributes to the overall work environment rather than just getting whatever you find.

Posts in This Series

1. Recommended Productivity Tools: An Introduction
2. The Tools You Need to Have (And Where to Keep Them)
3. Recommended In Boxes
4. Recommended Capture Journals
5. Recommended Pens
6. Recommended Pencils and Paper Pads
7. Recommended Staplers, Staple Removers, and Tape
8. Recommended Scissors, Letter Openers, and Post-Its
9. Recommended Paper Clips and Super Glue
10. Not Recommended: Desktop Organizer Things
11. Recommended Chairs and Waste Baskets
12. Recommended Labelers and File Folders
13. Recommended File Cabinets and Bookshelves

Post 10 in the series: Recommended Productivity Tools

Avoid desk organizers, such as the one above, at all costs.

Here’s why: They are designed, by nature, to hold things that should not be on your desk in the first place. So the result is that they don’t organize you; instead, they increase clutter.

For example, look at the above organizer. There is a spot for paper clips. But paper clips should not be on your desk. They should be in a drawer (as discussed in the first post).

There is a spot to keep pens and pencils as well — encouraging you to keep several of each on your desk, in fact. But you only need to keep one pen (or, at most, two) right on your desk, and a pencil probably not at all. All extra pens, and pencils, go in the drawer (again, as discussed in my first post). The one pen you keep on your desk just lays flat on the desk. It doesn’t need an organizer.

Keeping more than 2 pens on your desk is generally not necessary and so just serves to clutter your work environment, creating drag. If you do want to use a pen cup, however, then get just an ordinary pen cup that is just a single cup. Don’t get one of those huge organizers, such as above, that takes up all that space. Also, if you do get a pen cup, get a wire mesh one, not a plastic one, because it looks better.

Desk organizer things illustrate one principle really well: Getting organized is not first a matter of having the right “item” to get you organized. Many such items actually just create clutter. Getting organized is first about knowing what tools you need to have and some basic principles for how to arrange them for easy access with minimal clutter.

Posts in This Series

1. Recommended Productivity Tools: An Introduction
2. The Tools You Need to Have (And Where to Keep Them)
3. Recommended In Boxes
4. Recommended Capture Journals
5. Recommended Pens
6. Recommended Pencils and Paper Pads
7. Recommended Staplers, Staple Removers, and Tape
8. Recommended Scissors, Letter Openers, and Post-Its
9. Recommended Paper Clips and Super Glue
10. Not Recommended: Desktop Organizer Things
11. Recommended Chairs and Waste Baskets
12. Recommended Labelers and File Folders
13. Recommended File Cabinets and Bookshelves

Post 9 in the series: Recommended Productivity Tools

Paper Clips

I acknowledge that I don’t use paper clips much. But I still have a need for them every now and them, so I find it useful to keep them around.

The key point here is not to get the metal ones. There’s no substantial reason for that. It’s just that the vinyl coated ones look a bit nicer and so contribute to a better work environment.

You can get the vinyl coated ones in black or assorted colors.

Super Glue

I have super glue around at home (but not at work) because every once in a while you need it to repair something, and I’ve found my desk drawer as good a place as any to keep it.

The key here, in my view, is not to get odd-shaped, large containers. The small tubes are just fine. You can get instant Krazy glue or Elmer’s Super Glue or Super Glue Gel or any such thing. I have a tube of the Scotch Super Glue Gel and find it works just fine, and doesn’t take up too much room:

Posts in This Series

1. Recommended Productivity Tools: An Introduction
2. The Tools You Need to Have (And Where to Keep Them)
3. Recommended In Boxes
4. Recommended Capture Journals
5. Recommended Pens
6. Recommended Pencils and Paper Pads
7. Recommended Staplers, Staple Removers, and Tape
8. Recommended Scissors, Letter Openers, and Post-Its
9. Recommended Paper Clips and Super Glue
10. Not Recommended: Desktop Organizer Things
11. Recommended Chairs and Waste Baskets
12. Recommended Labelers and File Folders
13. Recommended File Cabinets and Bookshelves