"Feathering" (personalizing) your office desk

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If you have an office job, chances are, you have a permanent desk. Let's assume it's a cubicle. Different people feather, or personalize, their desks differently. Some people decorate the hell out of them, with no empty space in sight. Personal items and vacation photos are everywhere. Sometimes there are even paper garlands and Christmas lights. Some cover their cubicles in geeky posters and techie toys that beep, buzz, and flash colored lights. Others take the opposite bare-bones approach. Their desk is devoid of anything personal. Their coffee mug from home (and that's if their boss didn't give them a company one), and a paper calendar they printed off the internet is as personal as their desk gets.

I lean toward the bare bones approach. I work in IT, and that means one thing: people think they own you. They will interrupt your lunch, they will call you on your personal cell phone, they will trick you into staying late even when you have evening plans, and they will use underhanded ways to get their needs met, up to and including getting you fired. So very early on in my IT career, I became extremely jaded, and tried to psychologically distance myself from my work. In all my jobs except the first two, the most I brought to work was a coffee mug and a small desk fan. And in one job, you wouldn't even know I was sitting there if it weren't for my name plate. The cubicle walls remained bare the whole time I worked there. I drank coffee out of paper cups provided in the break room, so there wasn't even a coffee mug.

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I've never had an office job, but one retail job I had did, oddly, involved each of us having a desk to call our own and sit at, with a phone and other things, because part of this particular store job was to take orders from companies seeking supplies, in addition to being a regular store clerk for walk-in customers.

As I've never stayed very long at any job, due to burnout and ultimately walking out on the place, I hesitated to personalize my desk. I saw others with all those objects you mention, and I thought that must be fun to make yourself at home like that.

But I never felt it was wise for me to make myself at home. So I used to bring just a plastic thermal coffee mug to work with me every day, drink water from the water cooler, and take it home every night.

A couple of co-workers, in the early days when things hadn't yet turned sour, printed out a couple of pictures for me and I had those propped up. But other than that, the desk just had the same things on it that the last employee before me had on it.

If I had another desk job and really loved my job, felt like I would be able to work there forever, etc, then I would probably do more to make my space my own.

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Bare bones. My desk isn't ever big enough to work on.

I had a single drawer of the desk for my personal stuffs but I didn't keep any pictures in it. It was a spot for my cup, a spare t-shirt, tissues, notepad to write down important notes, my favorite pen (took of the office pencils case), bandaids, some sweets... Just practical items I needed everyday.
Oh, and I was keeping a spare sweater in the office closet. But it was also a practical thing - the office was getting very cold if the weather got bad and they didn't turn the heaters on.

But the desk itself was items free at all times. There was usually only a cup on it (since I drink a lot of water) and nothing else. Just computer and the papers I was working at.

I have nothing adorning ny desk.

I store stuff I need in my drawers.

My desk is a workstation vs an office desk. It's supposed to remain bare bones(kaisen mentality), but I do what I can get away with. It makes me feel more comfortable.

When I do get an office job, I would keep it very plain with nothing but paper and pens. Plus if I ever get canned, I wouldn't have to worry about walking out with a box.

Well, the closest thing I have is my computer desk, and let's see... coffee cups, coffee cups, water bottles, an empty smirnoff ice bottle, a saucer, a can of air duster, and a couple of pop cans. Oh, also a multitool, a couple of screwdrivers, and my headphones. I need to clean up!

I used to pass through a lot of office buildings and I saw the whole gamut. The ones that really amazed me were the women who'd turn a whole cube wall into a shrine for their child. Up to 6' by 6' of wall covered in kid photos.

If I ever had a cube or an office, I'd have to personalize it a little. I don't like clutter, though, so it would just be a few photos, a coffee mug, maybe a model airplane.

I have moved around a lot, so I actually had some of my most prized possessions in my office to keep them safe and accessible (I worked there for 13.5 years). BUT, I had a ton of space and locking desks and cabinets.

Now? I took my 'desk swag' like software pins and coffee mugs etc and put them in a bag which I brought directly into my new place where I work in a cube. I've added strategically to it, in a bid to set myself apart from my coworkers.

I've got a picture of each of my kids and my BFF, but, no framed wedding photos like most of my coworkers. I hate stuff on my desk, so everything is pinned to the walls or up on a shelf.
I've also got fangirl stuff (lotr, starwars, family guy, harry potter), technical reference posters, technical press pass, lego and rubix cube, 3d printed parts, a couple of random cables, and an ada lovelace poster.

Working amid primarily young women, I'm trying to make my desk look at "IT" as possible (at least at my old company, the IT folks always had toys (especially lego and rubix cubes) in their workspaces, so, when folks come by asking questions about the coworkers or the work we do, they pass by my desk and find someone who looks more like they fit in.
It mostly works.

If I had a picture of Daria, I MIGHT thumbtack it by my desk.

I like to personalize my workspace; I don't know how much is considered "a lot", but yes, I would mostly put pictures and newspaper articles. My special interest is autism and I work in the autism field so it's appropriate. There aren't really many autism-related memorabilia that I can think of to decorate your workspace with, so...

Computer, notepad, mug, diary, samples, many lumps of ore, lab coats, and a toppling pile of Australian standards on ore processing. All finely dusted with said ore dust. I think my spatula is there too, and someone left a large printed out graph there and hasn't moved it.