A Remote Work Office

Due to a pandemic, we are all now remote workers, and when we can return to our offices for work is still unknown. For some, the opportunity to do work remotely has inspired them to continue to pursue that after work can return to offices. And, as I interview with companies across the industry, more and more of them are looking at the numbers and getting over their fear of remote work.

Working remotely is a skill on its own. There's a lot to dig into there, but I wanted to talk about something a little more light and fun. For the past 2+ years I've been working remote and have really enjoyed making my space super functional for me. So, here is me just breaking down my office.

So, this is the overview of my office. You'll see a few key things here. First, I have a standing desk. Very key. Mine came from Uplift, but the truth is that most direct to consumer standing desk companies get all of their components from the same factory in China, and so the quality is going to be pretty much the same (you can even order the components from Alibaba if you're brave enough to try and make your own). I went with Uplift based on recommendations and because I liked some of the styling.

My standing desk looks out the window, too. This is key for me.. I like the outdoors and the sun. I have a trail behind my house that as I am typing this a kid on his bike is riding up and down it. It's a great little background that beats any kind of desktop background image!

Let's talk peripherals. Probably the most hotly contested topic in desk setups. I use a custom built Iris keyboard that's ultra quiet and has a nice split ergonomic form factor. This helps me with my posture, which I'm generally concerned about. This isn't a necessary component for a good office setup. Before I was using a relatively cheap, premade mechanical keyboard that wasn't in an ergonomic form fact. It worked great.

I use a magic trackpad on my development machine because I am mostly using hotkeys all day. I'm a vim user, and so my development is 100% keyboard based. Movement around the operating system is mostly keyboard based, and when I do need to use the mouse the nice thing about the trackpad is its small footprint.

The other key peripheral is my pen and notebook. I always have a notebook on my desk (even the PC desk has a separate notebook). I use a fancy fountain pen (not expensive, just makes me feel fancy). But, I love taking handwritten notes. It helps me stay engaged and keeps my mind active during even the most rote of meetings.

This is a super cheap monitor that had a decent refresh rate and a mounting bracket on the back. It floats, so it takes very little space on my desk, and it sits quite high for, you guessed it, posture reasons. The camera is a logitech 1080p thingamajig. It works; definitely recommend getting a logitech cam and just forgetting that camera problems were ever a thing.

Last thing on my standing desk is my tablet. It's relatively cheap and I got it to play around with doing some 3D modeling and 2D graphic design. It's attached to my PC, actually, and not the Mac, mostly because I don't use it for work. If I want to draw something for work, I have an iPad around the house that I'll sit on the couch and draw using that, but it doesn't seem to happen too often. The reason the tablet is on the standing desk is that its just more comfortable for me to draw standing up.

Okay, the PC desk. I mostly use this for recreation. I draw, model, play video games, talk to friends, browse reddit, etc. on my PC. It's nice having a separate machine to do that stuff on because it helps make clear delineations between "work mode" and "chill mode" when you're in front of a computer screen.

The peripherals here are all steel series. A friend of mine works there and it influenced me to go all in on trying their stuff. It all works great. And, you can see that there is a notepad on that desk, too! Love notepads.

This was just a fun little post to write about my setup. It isn't super complicated but it is super comfortable for me. And, honestly, that's one of the great things about working from home. You can build it to fit just your needs exactly how you want it and leave it at that.