(upbeat music)
- What is up guys, welcome back to another video.
Today I'm finally going to give you guys a tour
of my desk set up.
The desk behind me is used for many purposes at the moment.
The first of which is working from home.
The second of which is focusing on side projects,
like my YouTube channel - editing content for that.
And the third thing is just chilling out,
watching Netflix, watching YouTube videos
and a big thing there is listening to music.
I find it's really important
to make sure I have a nice divide
between my work life and my personal life
so I can be as productive as possible
in both of those domains.
So as you can imagine
this is a little bit tricky to establish
especially when you're working from home
and you're just chilling in the exact same setup.
Solving that problem has been my number one priority
since lockdown happened
and since we've all had to adapt to working from home.
So if you're interested in finding out
some of the tips and tricks I figured out
over the past few weeks
to help me separate the two spheres of my life,
working from home and chilling from home
in the exact same setup
this is the perfect video for you.
So what is the bread and butter of my setup?
What is the whole setup being powered off?
It's actually two machines.
I have a work laptop and a personal laptop,
and that is the first major key
for establishing a solid work life balance.
They are to MacBook pros and I've got to say,
I love the MacBook pro.
It's the perfect machine for me and everything I do
and I honestly can't imagine myself using any other laptop.
I've been using the Mac OS, MacBook Pros more specifically
for nearly a decade now.
So, I honestly can't imagine using any other laptop
besides from the MacBook pro
and a MacBook pro just fulfills all of my creative needs.
My work laptop is the brand new 16 inch MacBook pro.
And I've got to say
it's an absolute pleasure using that laptop.
The bigger screen, the bigger track pad
and most importantly the better keyboard
are all factors why I love the new 16 inch MacBook Pro.
It's only a matter of time
before I upgrade my personal laptop
from the 13 inch MacBook Pro from 2016
to another 16 inch MacBook Pro.
Whenever I'm using either of these laptops,
I have to plug it into an external monitor.
It does absolutely wonders for my productivity
once you've become used to all of that screen real estate,
having multiple tabs up at the same time multitasking,
most importantly when you're editing in premiere pro,
you can open the whole timeline
you can extend the timeline.
Because I'm always switching
which laptop is connected to my external monitor
it was really important for me
to have a one cable solution for this.
I've been there before in the past
where I had to unplug the power cable,
a HDMI cable, the speaker cable,
every single time I wanted to take my laptop on the go.
And that scenario would be an absolute nightmare
at the moment, given the fact that
I'm always switching between which laptop I'm using.
And that is one of many reasons
why I love my most recent pickup,
which is this ultra wide LG monitor.
Where the one single USB-C cable I can power my laptop,
I can receive audio from my laptop
and I can mirror my display, or I can extend my display.
So I've wanted to upgrade
to this LG 34 inch ultra wide monitor
for quite some time now.
Prior to having this monitor
I used to have a dual screen setup,
and I must say it's so much nicer
just having one long ultra wide display.
So as soon as I started working from home
at the start of lockdown,
the time was perfect I forced myself to upgrade.
Although the built in speakers in this monitor
are pretty good and they do have good bass,
I prefer to use my own desktop speakers and a subwoofer.
I've had these Trust Titan speakers
for nearly six years now.
The sound quality that you get from these speakers
is pretty amazing given how cheap they are.
These speakers have fueled many motives at university.
They really shake the house.
So for my needs these speakers absolutely do the job.
The only drawback I can actually say about these speakers
is that they're wired.
So it can be a bit of a nightmare
trying to wire about the cable management.
So when I'm using my personal 13 inch MacBook Pro
I prefer to use an external keyboard and mouse
and that is simply because I hate (with a passion)
the keyboard on this laptop.
It's an awful keyboard and it only gets worse over time
as dust and all sorts of stuff gets stuck in there.
Very bad design.
So I use the standard magic keyboard
and magic mouse from Apple.
It's clean, it's white, it suits the rest of my setup,
it gets the job done.
So that is actually the second way
how I like to establish work life balance at home at my desk
from using a different keyboard at the end of the day
Whether I'm working,
or I'm doing stuff on my personal laptop,
I'm staring at the exact same screen
I'm looking at the exact same Mac OS.
So by just typing on a different keyboard,
it kind of helps to put me in a different state of mind
depending on what work I'm doing.
Next up, I want to talk about the light strip behind my desk.
It's an absolute major key
for helping to establish work life balance.
It's a two meter Philips Hue Lightstrip
which I control using my phone.
Depending on the type of work I'm doing,
or even the time of day,
I will change the mood lighting to influence my mood
to boost my productivity at times of the day
when it needs an extra punch.
For instance, if I'm doing a piece of work
that's really stressful
I sometimes change the mood lighting to purple
just to relax me a little bit
or I change it to blue
if I'm trying to concentrate on a lot of reading.
I've always found that blue light and purple light
really helped me focus and concentrate.
So if you're a student right now
you're struggling to study and focus at home
especially when you're gaming in the same room
that you're studying in
get some mood lighting influence your mood.
The colored lighting works so well in the space
because the wall is a plain white wall.
So as soon as I change the mood lighting
it just lights up the whole space in a different color.
Now let's talk about the most bait part of my setup,
the desk.
I'm slightly ashamed to say this
but it's just the basic / standard Ikea YouTuber desk set up.
Before purchasing this desk
I was seriously considering buying a sit-stand desk.
I spoke with tongue twister, sit-stand desk,
say that 10 times fast, sit- stand desk, sit-stand desk,
forget it, but in the end
I decided against it because I went to my friend's house
and he had the exact setup I have here
with the basic Ikea I think Linnmon desk top,
I don't know the exact specs but you go on any other, but if you go watch any other
desk set up YouTuber they probably got the same desk.
You can find out the specs there.
I know the drawers are called the ALEX drawers,
but he had this basic setup at his house
and I really liked how I thought it was just, it was calm.
It just called the job down.
It was a big desk and plenty of storage.
What more do you need, right?
Whenever I work, I treat it as interval training anyway.
So I take regular breaks
throughout the day whenever I'm working.
So I always stand up and stretch my legs anyway.
So I feel like a standing desk
wouldn't actually be that beneficial for me
and the way I work,
I'd say I'm a fairly organized guy, like fairly organized
to the point where it's not over the top organized.
So each drawer I have on my desk
serves a specific function for that reason.
So I know where everything is.
If I need a hard drive, if I need a cable,
if I need a pen, if I need a note pad,
I can just quickly grab it nice and easily
'cause I know exactly where everything is.
The chair in this setup
definitely needs to be upgraded sometime soon.
The elbow rest of this chair are completely worn out
so it feels like I'm pushing my elbows
into wood all day long
and the chair overall is extremely squeaky.
Even after I tighten up.
(squeaking)
It's a little bit embarrassing
when I'm in calls and the chairs just squeaking around
and it kind of makes a farting noise.
It needs to be upgraded.
I'll link down below
all the products mentioned in today's video,
take care of yourselves and I'll see you next time.
Peace.