(upbeat music)
- Hey, friends.
Welcome back to the channel
and to the annual productivity desk setup tour.
As usual, in this video
I'll be taking you through all of the things
I've got on my desk and how they work together,
they add to my workflow,
to make me a productivity grease monkey.
Let's start firstly with the hardware.
Now, this entire desk setup is being powered
by the 2020 M1 Mac mini.
I've maxed it out to the 16 gigabytes of RAM
and the two terabyte hard drive,
which is fantastic for all the large video files
that I normally have to deal with.
And connect it to the Mac mini via USB-C
is this huge ass LG 49 inch ultra wide monitor,
which has a resolution of 5120 by 1440.
LG very kindly sent me this monitor two years ago
and I've had no reason to upgrade
because this is absolutely sick.
And it's really nice having the ultra wide setup
because it's like having two 27 inch monitors
just side by side,
but without the bezel in the middle.
And so normally what I have
is that I've got a sort of 27 inch window
in the middle of the screen that has my main window,
and then off to the side, I've got two other windows.
Now, I use an app called Moom,
which lets me create keyboard shortcuts
that lets me easily switch
between the different window configurations.
So I've got one option that's middle
and two windows on the side,
but for example, if I'm taking notes from a book
and I want two windows to be in the center of my vision,
I've got another keyboard shortcut that lets me
split the middle of the monitor into two separate windows,
which works really nicely.
In terms of peripherals,
I've got a dual cursor setup
with the Magic Trackpad from Apple
and the Logitech MX Master 3,
although I really wish this was in white
because it would go with a desk setup better.
And it's nice having both the mouse and the Trackpad.
I normally use the mouse for navigating day to day,
but the Trackpad is really nice
for smooth scrolling, which is...
The mouse is a little bit like tick, tick, tick
when you scroll,
whereas the Trackpad it's like,
it's a joy to scroll with the Trackpad.
The Trackpad is also great for those gestures
like, you know, four fingers swipe up,
three fingers swipe up, you know,
getting rid of everything on the desktop
by pinching outwards.
It's all quite handy.
The keyboard that is powering this whole thing
is the IQUNIX F96 mechanical keyboard
and I believe I have the cherry blue switches.
I'll put a link in the video description
and I'll also link to a video
where I've reviewed this keyboard in depth.
This is a nice mechanical keyboard that has a nice sound.
(keys clicking)
but the annoying thing about having such a loud keyboard
is that if you're on a Zoom call
and you're like trying to do something on the side
or trying to type up notes from the call
without the person on the other end
knowing that you're typing...
(keys clicking)
It's hard to like hide that particular sound.
So that is like the one drawback
of having a very loud mechanical keyboard.
Now, the slightly annoying thing about the 2020 M1 Mac mini
that's powering this whole setup
is that it's only got two Thunderbolt ports
and two USB ports,
and because usually I need more ports than that,
what I've got plugged in is the CalDigit TS3 Plus,
which is like a Thunderbolt dock,
which connects straight to the Mac mini
and gives me a much larger choice of ports,
including an SD card slot and extra USB ports,
which is basically what I need.
And normally I've got the dock sitting
behind the Mac mini so that you can't really see it.
And I very artfully and cleverly use this fake Ikea plant,
which adds some greenery my desk to boost my creativity,
but I also use that to hide the absolute mess of wires
that the Mac mini and the Thunderbolt dock
otherwise generate.
In terms of speakers,
I'm currently using the Kanto YU2 speakers
on top of their little speaker stands
that elevates them by about 15 degrees, which is quite nice.
And the main reason to go for these was that they're white
and I think they look quite nice on a desk.
And I actually got by with some very cheap LG speakers
for the last like five years,
but I thought, you know what,
this YouTube channel is making some money now
so I can afford to splash out on a fancy set of speakers.
There's a few other things that really tie this off
as a pure productivity desk setup
and those are three peripherals that I've got connected
to the Mac mini.
Firstly, I've got one of these.
This is called the Elgato Cam Link 4K
and what it does is that it plugs into an HDMI cable
and so if I'm on Zoom calls,
which I've been spending a lot of time on,
or if I'm doing live streams,
I can plug an HDMI cable into this camera,
that then plugs into the Elgato Cam Link,
which plugs into my Mac mini,
and therefore I use the input from this camera
which acts as my webcam.
And that's like a real flex
if I'm on a Zoom call with people who are using
their crappy quality webcams.
And because when you're on live streams or doing Zoom calls,
audio quality is even more important
and even more of a flex than video quality.
I've got the Shure SM7B top of the line
podcasting microphone
connected to the Rode PSA1 microphone arm.
And so if I'm hopping on a call,
I will just weave this over here,
get the microphone in front of my face,
normally I have the webcam over to the side,
and I can be talking into the microphone
and can deepen my voice a little bit
to make myself sound a little bit more manly
when I'm on a Zoom call.
And then when I'm finished with the call,
I would just put the microphone away.
And usually it bangs into that plant,
which is why that plant is not getting a lot of love
because it's been molested by that microphone significantly.
The microphone itself is plugged into the Cloudlifter,
which is little fancy gizmo
that boosts the gain on the microphone,
whatever that means,
and that is plugged into the Focusrite 2I4 audio interface,
which is also what I use when I'm recording myself
playing the guitar or piano or things like that.
Moving away from the main electronics,
let's now talk about the furniture and the chair and stuff.
So in terms of desks,
this is the Fully Bamboo Jarvis standing desk.
And so normally I have it in the sitting configuration,
but if I want, I can turn it into standing configuration.
And same as with the monitor,
Fully very kindly sent me this about two years ago
and I've absolutely loved it
and I haven't had any need to change it.
And now I think I'm gonna have a motorized standing desk
in whatever desk setup I ever have in the future
just because it's so nice to be able to switch
between sitting and standing mode.
And in terms of chair,
now, this is very exciting
because this is the Herman Miller Sayl
in a nice sort of white, silver and blue color,
which goes with my whole general blue accent color
that I like for myself.
And for a long time,
I didn't splash out on a fancy ass chair.
Before I would ask my mum for permission
to spend 700 pounds on a chair
and she would say, "Hell no.
Why the hell would you spend 700 pounds on a chair?"
So this year I decided,
you know what, I'm 26 years old now,
I'm just gonna go ahead and order one of these chairs
without asking her permission.
So now I have one of these
and now I've ordered it and now she can't say anything.
So I'm an adult now, mum.
I can make my own decisions.
This chair is particularly nice
because it's got arms that can go up and down.
And now when they delivered it
there was a guy from Herman Miller who came in
and showed me the appropriate ergonomics
of this sort of chair.
And basically what you want
is you want it to be like this
whereby the arms of the chair
are just above the desk itself.
And that means if you sit back like this
or if you're sitting on the desk,
you've got your arms at a sort of 90 degree position.
So that's why this desk is kind of low.
In the past I used to have it a bit higher,
but this was bad ergonomically
according to this Herman Miller dude,
so now I have it quite low
and it's just like such a comfortable position.
And now even when I'm sitting on this desk
for hours and hours and hours at a time,
like I'm doing in lockdown
and after I quit my job as a doctor,
I now don't really get any back pain,
which I've always had in the past
with other chairs that I've used.
And it's kind of cool.
It's got a setting where you can,
like, you can go all the way back.
So if you're on a Zoom call or something
and you wanna be a real flex, you can be like, "Oh yeah."
And do that whole flexing the pecs or whatever that is.
And you can lock it and now you can't go back on it.
So, Herman Miller Sayl, fantastic chair.
The other cool feature of this desk
is that underneath they've got these two magnetic hooks
and so I have my Bose QC 700s,
and now my new Airpod Pro, Max,
whatever these things are called,
on the hooks underneath my desk.
It's mostly been the Airpods that I've been using
for the last week or so,
but the Bose QC 700s I was using
for a few months before that, which is quite nice.
And on the other side of the desk
I've got an Ikea Alex drawer unit.
In my old desk setup, I used to have two of those,
now I've dropped down to one,
and that basically has all of the tech
that I need on a daily basis.
So cameras, leads, cables, screws,
all of that kind of stuff.
Let's talk about desk accessories now.
And this is an area where I've really upgraded this year
compared to last year.
So basically all of the desk accessories on my desk
are from Ugmonk, which is a fantastic brand.
I'll put an affiliate link in the video description
if you want to check out some of their stuff.
It's really cool
and I've been lusting after this brand for ages.
They're a little bit expensive,
but this stuff looks really, really nice.
And now, again, that this YouTube channel is making money,
I thought, you know what,
let's splash out on some desk accessories.
So number one, we have the Gather from Ugmonk
and this is what it looks like.
It's basically this like modular unit
that you can stick on your desk
and you can buy little bits for it
and it comes with like a starter kit.
So this is like the starter kit.
And it's really cool
'cause it's got like a Walnut wooden base
and then it's got these white bits that go on top of it
and you can move them around
and you can put them in whatever configuration you want.
So the way that I've got it is I've got my post-it unit,
my post-it note holder over here,
and then I've got this little pouch
which has pencil thingies for my mechanical pencils
and usually some SD cards and my AirPods.
I've got this thing over here,
which has more pens and pencils.
This is a holder for my phone,
which normally goes over here.
I've got the three notebooks,
which have like nice inspiring messages on them,
which I've not yet used,
but it's quite nice having them if I need them.
And then I've got this sort of pen and pencil holder.
And it's just nice having this on my desk
as a way of organizing the paper and non-tech accessories
that I use every day.
The other cool thing that we've got from Ugmonk,
this is called Analog,
which is an analog to-do list system.
Now, this thing is really cool.
I've been using it for the last few weeks
and it's actually sick.
It's very simple.
Some would say it's overpriced for what it is,
but I think it's great and nicely designed and minimalistic.
And when you want something with a minimalist aesthetic,
you have to be prepared to pay a little bit extra for it.
Basically they give you these like cards.
We've got a series of cards for today.
We've got some cards for next and we have cards for someday.
And the idea is that every day you take
one of these today cards and you write down your to-do list
that you're gonna be doing that day.
And then as you're going about the day
you can cross off the items on your to-do list.
And the really cool thing is that you can store
all of the extra cards underneath.
But this, again, Walnut wooden stand
has a nice little place where you can just like prop up
your today card.
And so usually I have this sitting on my desk
right in front of me.
So I have an analog to do list
that I see all the time and I can be like,
oh, you know I should call my grandma.
Tick, let's do that.
Oh, you know, I've got a date night with this person,
I should do that.
At least that's what I pretend to do.
And finally, again from Ugmonk,
I have one of these coasters,
which says enjoy the journey,
which is one of my mantras in life
so this is quite nice.
And the second coaster that I have on my desk
says Klam Rats,
and this was a group of university friends.
One of the guys called Marcus made one of this for us
and it has like all of the initials
of the little people in our friendship group.
I shouldn't say little people,
but like the people in our friendship group,
and it's all very nice and wholesome and cute
and it reminds me that I actually have
some friends in this world,
which is why I always have that coaster on my desk.
There's another thing,
which is usually on my desk off to the side,
and this is the Remarkable 2 tablet.
I've had this for the last few weeks
and I've been testing it out
and I actually quite like it.
I'm gonna do a proper review on it in a little while,
but this is basically a glorified piece of paper.
And this is now, like if I'm on a call or something
and I don't want to type on my loud ass keyboard,
I'll take out the Remarkable and I'll do some notes
on it by hand and then that syncs with all my devices.
Yeah, it's kind of useful.
It's basically like an iPad, but less good.
But in a way that's kind of nice
because I actually would rarely use an iPad
for handwritten notes, even though my iPad is great.
My iPad pro 12.9 inch, Apple pencil,
paper like screen protector,
all of that's really nice for taking handwritten notes,
but it's just the iPad is such an overkill device
for just busting out and just take handwritten notes
that I was never actually using it.
Whereas, probably because of some kind of novelty factor,
I've now started using the Remarkable 2
to take handwritten notes for whatever that's worth.
In terms of other accessories,
I also have this weird ass looking letter opener on my desk,
which I keep here for opening letters and packages.
Finally, on the other side of my desk,
I've got one of these Kentia palm potted plant thingies,
which sort of overhangs
and it's kind of nice having
a little bit of greenery in my life.
Unfortunately, the plant is dying
because it's been attacked by the microphone stand
a few too many times.
So I probably do need to take better care of it.
And then on the other side, on top of the drawer unit,
I've got my little Japanese cup thingies,
one of which stores lots of pens
and markers and sharpies,
and the other one has like excess coins in it.
And I got these from Japan when I went on a research project
in my second year of med school in like 2014.
There's a few other things that you usually have
on top of the Alex drawer unit.
So firstly, I have my moisturizer,
which reminds me to moisturize my face.
This is the Natio daily protection face moisturizer
with SPF 15,
which whatever.
I also usually have a camera lens.
This is the Sony 16-35 G-Master
and at the moment I'm filming on the 24 millimeter
F1.4 G-Master, but usually I'll swap these around,
and the one that I'm not using,
I will stick on top of the drawer unit.
Right now I've got an extra camera on there.
This is the Sony A7III,
which normally features as part of my overhead rig
with the Tamron 28-75 millimeter lens on it.
And I normally have my physical notebook.
This is the Leuchterm 1917,
which is my favorite physical notebook.
I normally have that lying around.
Usually that is sort of propped up
in between the Focusrite audio interface
and the plant pot.
Two more things to talk about.
Firstly, lamps.
So in the corner of my desk, I have the Tomons desk lamp,
which sort of looks like one of those articulating
Pixar type lamps.
I'm not a huge fan of it, looking to upgrade it soon.
And on the other side, I have a random lamp.
I think it's from Wayfair.
Usually I have it pointing up
so it creates a little bit of a glow.
And of course I've got Philips Hue light bulbs
connected to all of the lamps in the living room.
And so I could say for example,
"Alexa, turn on ice and fire in the living room."
Looks like that.
Or, "Alexa, turn on arctic Aurora in the living room.
Alexa, turn on savannah sunset in the living room."
And usually when it gets to the evening or nighttime,
I'd say, "Alexa, turn on relax in the living room."
And that turns the lights nice and warm and dim.
And that's a set up I've been using for filming this video.
Two more things to mention now.
Firstly, let's talk about cable management.
Now, the slightly annoying thing
about having a standing desk
is that you do have to think quite hard
about cable management,
because when you turn your desk to standing mode,
you don't want any cables to just fall off
or you don't want your laptop to topple down
or anything weird to happen.
And so in terms of cable management
this really doesn't look very good.
In one corner of the desk
I've got a huge mess of cables,
which is normally hidden by this bamboo bin that,
again, Fully sent me.
And on the other side,
I've actually got one of these light boxes from Apertura
that I hide an extra extension cable box thing in,
because when it comes to plugging in lights
or microphones or camera gear,
it's really annoying having it away from me
and it's nice having this extra set of cables
towards the middle of the room.
But to avoid it being an eyesore,
it's nicely hidden away in the box.
And I guess the final thing to mention
about the desk set up really
is that this year I've added in ways
to make the friction of filming YouTube videos a lot less.
And so I've actually got a ceiling mounted light
along with a ceiling mounted screw,
which my overhead rig can screw onto nicely.
And so if I want to film a video,
I actually don't have to worry about
getting this huge light dome set up.
I can usually just use the Godox SL60,
which is tied to the ceiling,
connected to the Apertura space light,
which gives me a nice soft light.
And if I want to film an overhead rig,
again, in the past,
I used to have to set up a whole C-stand
and counterbalance the camera and everything.
But now I can just screw on a boom arm to the ceiling
and then attach my Sony A7III to it
and that gives me a perfect overhead setup
for whatever overhead shots I want to film.
And so all this stuff might seem a bit excessive,
but it's all really in service
of me trying to become more productive
and just trying to boost my productivity
in any ways that I can.
But to be honest, the actual way to boost your productivity
isn't really to go out and buy fancy desk accessories
and a fancy standing desk.
The actual way to boost your productivity
is by going over to Skillshare and checking out my class.
I've got two classes about how to improve your productivity.
And because Skillshare are very kindly
sponsoring this video,
if you hit the link in the video description,
then you will get a free trial to Skillshare,
and then during your free trial,
you can check out my whole two productivity classes.
It's lots of hours of me talking,
basically teaching you every single thing that I know
about how to be more productive.
And then once your trial is over,
the annual premium subscription to Skillshare
costs less than $10 a month.
And for that, you get access to literally thousands
of high quality classes covering all sorts of things,
from productivity and creativity,
all the way through to cooking and interior design.
So if you watched this far and you're seeing this message
you're definitely gonna be interested
in my productivity class,
but also my friend Thomas Frank
has got two of his own productivity classes as well.
Recently he's released one
called "Productivity for Creators",
which is actually really good.
And all of these are things that you can watch
during your free trial.
So if that sounds up your street
and you wanna check out my productivity materials,
which is more than just get a fancy desk setup,
click the link in the video description
and sign up to your free trial.
And I'll also put a link to all of my classes
that I've got on Skillshare.
If you liked this video and you wanna see more
of a behind the scenes of my life,
click the video over here,
which is my productive apartment tour.
And that shows you the rest of the things
I've got in this flat to help me be more happy,
healthy, and productive.
So thank you so much for watching
and I'll see you in the next video, bye-bye.