Home office organisation is one of the most important things to do well when working from home. A badly organised space will hinder you on so many levels. It sabotages your focus, productivity, mental clarity, making it hard for you to get things done.
Floating shelves come into play because they provide an interesting way of keeping your home office organised. Since they “float” above the ground, they maximise your empty wall spaces, allowing you to keep your stuff flexibly and neatly. Floating shelves thus balance both aesthetics and functionality in a small home office space.
You may wonder what to display on these shelves for practical and aesthetic reasons. This isn’t rocket science, but there are indeed common ways that you can organise your shelves and general work space.
Here, we list 7 common categories of items that go atop floating shelves in a home office.
1. Plants
Plants are a popular item that people use to decorate their shelves. In terms of the home office, plants greenify your workspace.
It is beneficial to have natural elements in walled up environments, since studies show that plants can boost self-esteem, mood, and productivity of workers. Just having a few plants on your shelves can infuse a sense of life into your stale home office.
To decorate floating shelves, get low light plants. Such plants can thrive in artificially lit indoor spaces, without needing direct sunlight. They are low maintenance, and are great options if you are a busy person without a green thumb.
Besides being low light, some plants are also effective air purifiers that clean up the indoor air you breathe.
Overall, there are potential psychological, health, and productivity benefits when you decorate your shelves with the right plants. If you are someone with plenty of plants, floating shelves can keep your plants neatly organised while they thrive under low light.
The shelves you use should be at least 8 inches deep to accommodate plants.
To build a basic plant wall, you should space your shelves apart to accommodate various plant sizes, as well as find places to buy pots and learn the basics of growing plants.
2. Everyday Work Items
There are everyday work items that you need to access daily. For example, an artist would need to store their paint brushes and art supplies. A videographer or photographer would use a whole set of different tools. These are some common work devices:
- Laptop
- Daily and weekly goal tracker
- Keyboard and mouse
- Stationery or pencil box
- Notebook
- Printer
- Camera gear
Not all work items have to be cluttered on a small desk. Instead, you can neatly lay out some work items on your shelves while freeing your small work desk.
Thus, floating shelves are a storage hack for your most commonly used items.
But beyond aesthetics, floating shelves provide extra desk space for those who need it, and for those who want to use a floating shelf as an additional desk. You can use floating shelves as desks provided that you make measurements to ensure that the ergonomics are right, before fixing a shelf in place.
Furthermore, when you work from home, it is essential to separate “work” from “home”. After work, you must help your brain break the notions of “work” that it has associated with your living space.
Floating shelves can do the trick by making your space feel less like work. They can also make your workspace ‘disappear’. After work, place your work devices – your printer, stationery, and laptop – atop floating shelves, and let them be spaced out by plants, small sculptures, books, and other decorative items.
Instead of seeing a desk full of office supplies, your eyes will be seeing decorated shelves, something that does not feel like work.
3. Electronic Gadgets
Most of us work with gadgets in our homes.
Like work items, the electronic gadgets that you use far too often, such as chargers, power banks, USB cables, camera gear, and headphones, can be organized in a central place. Since you access such items frequently, putting them away in a drawer may be less efficient.
Have your gadgets lined up in a systematic way. Grab your devices easily whenever you need access.
If your space is small, corner floating shelves or L-shaped floating shelves would be great for productivity.
These shelves provide additional space to work on your electronic gadgets and store them, and can even serve as a second desk.
L-shaped shelves, wrapped around your walls, make otherwise unused corner spaces highly functional for work. Working atop corner L-shaped shelves help to minimise distractions, since you are facing the wall in front of and adjacent to you.
4. Healthy Food
Now you may be thinking: It must be a bad idea to line my shelves up with food. However, there is a difference between brain boosting healthy food and mind numbing snacks.
If you have shelves in your kitchen, you would line them up with dish display items and kitchen gadgets. You can do the same in your home office, except you have to ensure that these foods 100% support your energy levels and focus. Here are examples of items you can display and access conveniently:
- Cups
- Tea bags stored in boxes
- Black coffee
- Supplements
- Fruit bowl
- Protein powder
- Snack bars
Instead of loading up with cookies and chips, having the right set of foods around can provide you with brain fuel. It helps when your healthy protein snacks and macadamia nuts are literally and visibly lined up atop floating shelves in front of you.
Setting up systems to consume such foods, such as scheduled lunch and tea breaks, helps. Otherwise, working in a home office can be a disorganised endeavour that sets you back physically and mentally.
After all, you can have all the essentials you need from the comfort of your home office, unlike when you are stuck in your company’s office. You simply need to optimise your systems to be more effective and get more done during the day.
5. Personal Care Essentials
Planning and establishing routines that improve your life is easy from the space of your home. When you work from home, you have more time and less excuses to neglect mind and health nourishing habits.
These routines may include skin care and personal care routines.
You may not have the space to place your personal care items and products on your desk. Instead of keeping them away under the desk or in your bookcase, displaying them visibly on shelves within reach will remind you to use them.
Stay on top of your routines.
6. Books
Books are common items used to fill up the empty spaces on your floating shelves. That is the clear aesthetic benefit of lining up books on your shelves.
Besides aesthetics, shelves are a practical alternative to a bookcase if you own books, but do not have sufficient floor space in your room. Shelves take up unused spaces on the walls. For instance, they can be installed high up on the wall that your desk is leaning against.
You may also prefer less bulky furniture. In that case, you may prefer sleek looking floating shelves over a bookcase.
7. Purely Decorative Objects
Shelves can be purely decorative. It is always good to add vibrancy into your home office, if you like the sleek modern look of floating shelves and they make you feel good.
In terms of purely decorative objects, some examples are:
- Small sculptures
- Vases
- Baskets
- Picture frames
- Artworks
- Personal souvenirs and gifts
- Personal accomplishments such as certs, medals, and trophies
These objects make your home office feel a little more fun. Besides, they can serve as fun ways to survive a windowless home office or if you are somehow working in a very cramped space.