What's going on guys?
Dr. Jubbal, medschoolinsiders.com.
A lot of you have asked for a workplace tour... so, let's get to it.
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Now, I haven't always had a separate office or studio or workplace, whatever you
want to call it, and bedroom.
But now that I do, because I have one place to relax, unwind, recharge and one place to
get work done, it really helps define different spaces and get you in a different mindset
based on your surroundings.
So, I really do love that.
This whole room is just for work.
So, first we'll start with of course, the desk.
This is an Ikea Jerker standing desk.
Ikea no longer makes this but you can find one on Craigslist for about $80 to $100.
They're really phenomenal, affordable and are very versatile.
Now, one thing that you'll note though is that this is not a fancy standing desk, you
can't just press a button and change the height from standing to sitting.
You set the height using these bolts on the side and once you do that, you don't really
want to mess with it.
It's kind of a process to set it up.
So, I keep mine at a standing height.
Now, some of my friends who also like to stand at their desks, will have a tall stool so
they can go from standing to sitting pretty seamlessly, not a big deal.
The reason I chose not to do that is number one, I'll save money by not buying a stool.
But more importantly number two is this incentivizes me to stand as much as possible.
So, if I have this nice desk set up, dual monitors, awesome speakers, you know, my peripherals,
everything just right and I can only stand here, it is going to incentivize me to stand
as much as possible.
Whereas if I have a stool, I won't really feel like guilty for sitting down every once
in a while and I'll probably end up sitting much more than I would want to.
Now, I can still sit and do work but of course I need to remove my computer from this setup,
go downstairs to my dining table or a couch or whatever and sit down and do work there.
I won't have the nice monitors.
I won't have the nice speakers.
So, overall, this is a trick that I used to stand as much as possible and to incentivize
myself.
Now, as for the things on my desk, I have two Samsung 28 inch, 4k monitors.
I'll have a link to these and all other items in this video down in the description below.
These are phenomenal monitors.
The bezels are a little bit larger.
These aren't, you know, cutting-edge brand new but that's not super important to me.
The image quality, the brightness, the colors, excellent.
Now, these are both attached to the desk using a single VIVO Dual Monitor Arm.
This allows me to position them at the right height and at the right angle to really perfect
the ergonomics.
Obviously, if you're going to be working for a long time, really important to have spot-on
ergonomics.
Now, behind each of the monitors I keep my headphones.
This first pair - these are Philips Fidelio X2 headphones, Very easy to drive, meaning
you can plug them into a phone or a computer and they'll sound phenomenal.
And my second pair, these are actually my all-time favorites.
These are Sennheiser HD 600 headphones.
Several years old.
I think these came out in the 90s actually.
But these are still widely regarded as one of the classic and greatest headphones.
These you can't necessarily just plug in to your phone or your computer.
You'd use an amp to actually make them sound good.
An amp drives more power to the headphones than you can get from a mobile device.
And that's what this thing is right here.
So, this contraption is a combination of an amp and a DAC.
A DAC is a Digital to Analog Converter.
Think of it as an external sound card.
And the amp is the part that, like I said earlier, it drives more power to your headphones.
So, this is the FiiO E9 and E7 and I use them to either drive my headphones or they connect
to these monitors.
These are Emotiva or Emotiva Airmotiv force.
These are also very neutral sounding, so if you're a huge bass head, probably not for
you.
But they have ribbon tweeters, very clean, crisp sound.
As for the peripherals I use, I have a pretty standard Apple Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard
and a Logitech MX Master 2S Mouse.
This is very popular and for a good reason.
I have a Philips Hue Lightstrip behind my desk.
And this allows me to change the color very seamlessly with my smart phone.
Now, on this bottom shelf of my desk is where I actually keep my computer.
This is a MacBook Pro 15 inch with touch bar, 2017 model.
And I keep it in clamshell mode because it want the screen on when I'm standing and because
of that, I have it on this cooling pad.
This cooling pad helps to cool the laptop when it's in a clamshell mode and doesn't
have as optimal cooling.
I keep all of my cables organized in these sleeves just to keep things nice and tidy.
I have two external hard drives.
One is for Time Machine backups.
It's very important to keep both a local and cloud backup.
So, I keep my local backup here on this Time Machine drive.
I have another external hard drive where I keep all of my files.
Like the videos that I'm recording right now.
Now, I'm actually in the process of transitioning from these external hard drives to a NAS.
A NAS is, stands for Network Accessible Storage and it's essentially a device that allows
you to hook up multiple hard drives, and they have redundancy, so if one hard drive fails,
your data is still there.
But the cool thing is you can access this from anywhere on your network, you don't have
to be plugged in.
So, I'm right now in the process of transitioning all my data from these hard drives to this
NAS.
This is what I always stand on.
This is a standing mat and this will decrease the fatigue from standing on your feet all
the time at a standing desk.
I also have one of these which is a lacrosse ball.
Now, while I'm standing, I will constantly shift my weight and roll on one foot and then
the other.
It's like self massage if you will, on the bottom of your feet.
Feels really good.
Helps to loosen up that plantar fascia.
This also keeps you moving because you don't want to just stand still, you want to keep
moving while you're at your standing desk.
And to the sides you'll see I have this Brother Laser Printer and behind that, this is a book
stand.
And this is super handy when I want to read a textbook at my desk and not sacrifice the
ergonomics.
Now, this book stand is very useful when you're studying text books and you want to both read
a book and take notes at the same time.
So, what I do is, I just move my mouse and keyboard out of the way, I set this up like
so.
I can place my textbook right here, it even has these page holders, and by doing so, I
don't have to compromise my economics by bending over to read the book.
It's like this, I can stand up straight, read the book, take notes or type on my computer
at the same time as reading.
So, this thing is really useful, very cheap too.
I'll place a link down in the description below.
Now, as for the rest of the room, I have of course a fan, a lamp.
This is a ring light that I use when I'm shooting and I need more light.
This gets really bright and lights up the whole room.
I also have these acoustic foam panels on the back wall and a smaller standing desk
with an external monitor.
That's my Chromebook over there.
This is in case a friend or colleague wants to come and study with me.
And in this corner here I have a whiteboard.
This is where I just kind of brainstorm if I need to draw something.
And this is what I actually record all the Med School Insiders audio on, all the voiceovers.
I have a monoprice reflection shield which helps decrease the echo, a pop filter, Blue
Yeti mic and a speaker stand that allows me to do the entire thing while standing up.
The reason I like standing up rather than sitting is that it allows me to be more animated,
speaking in a more natural way and ultimately deliver a better final product.
All right guys, that is it for this video.
Thank you for watching.
I think that these desk tutorial shouldn't be used as a definitive, guys, to what you
should and should not have.
It's more of like an evolution and you can pick and choose what you like and don't like
from different setups.
So, over the years, I've seen standing desks and you know, one or two monitors and different
setups and the desk setup that I have right now really fits my needs.
It's really optimized for my workflow right now.
So, let me know what you guys think, how is your desk different than mine, what do you
like, what do you not like, what suggestions or improvements would you make yourself.
I'd love to hear from you guys down in the comments below.
Thanks for watching and I will see you guys in the next one!
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