**Using Your Current Setup as a Starting Point**
When it comes to redesigning your workspace, it's easy to get caught up in browsing other people's setups and trying to replicate them. However, this approach can lead to building around an existing setup that may not perfectly suit your needs. The best way to start is by using your current setup as a starting point. Take stock of what you already have and what works for you. Ask yourself what I need to change or improve. By doing so, you'll be able to identify the areas where you can make adjustments without having to reinvent the wheel.
For me, this meant looking at my current desk setup and identifying what wasn't working for me. I realized that I needed a wider surface area, so I started exploring options for expanding my workspace. This led me to consider adding a side table or even two desks, with a Blick surface skin on one of them. While I ultimately ended up going in a different direction, this exercise helped me visualize what I wanted and made it easier to make decisions about how to move forward.
**Keeping Track of Cool Products and Brands**
Another key part of creating an effective workspace is keeping track of cool products and brands that you come across. It's easy to get distracted by new gadgets or design trends, but it's essential to have a system for storing and organizing the information that's relevant to your needs. For me, this meant finding ways to quickly save and retrieve product information without getting bogged down by clutter.
One app that has been a game-changer for me is Mind, which allows me to quickly capture and organize ideas and inspiration without having to think too hard about how to tag or categorize them. The AI-powered interface makes it easy to search through my saved content and find exactly what I'm looking for. This has been a huge time-saver and has helped me stay focused on the projects that matter most.
**Visualizing Your Space**
When it comes to designing your workspace, visualization is key. It's essential to have a clear idea of how everything will fit together in terms of space and layout. For me, one of the most effective ways to visualize my space was by creating sketches of different layouts using my iPad and Apple Pencil. This allowed me to get a sense of what would work best without having to physically build anything.
One feature that was particularly useful for this exercise was the Smart Object tool in Apple Notes. By quickly sketching out shapes and labeling them, I was able to create detailed diagrams of my space and test out different layouts without committing to anything permanent. This helped me refine my ideas and make informed decisions about how to move forward.
**Mood Boarding and Selective Duplication**
Another technique that has been helpful for me is mood boarding. By collecting images and inspiration from various sources, I can get a sense of the overall aesthetic and style of my workspace without getting bogged down by too much detail. I've used apps like Muse to create digital mood boards, which have been incredibly effective in helping me visualize how everything will come together.
In addition to mood boarding, I've also found it useful to duplicate elements of my design using selective duplication. By creating multiple versions of the same element and switching between them quickly, I can test out different ideas without having to start from scratch every time. This has been a huge time-saver and has helped me refine my designs with greater ease.
**Conclusion**
Designing your workspace is a process that requires patience, creativity, and attention to detail. By using your current setup as a starting point, keeping track of cool products and brands, visualizing your space, and mood boarding, you can create an effective workspace that meets your unique needs and inspires productivity. Remember to take your time, don't be afraid to experiment, and don't be too proud to try new things – and most importantly, make it uniquely yours!
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey it's chris i just recently moved and so for several months i've been just working with a temporary desk setup and so i'm finally getting around to dreaming and scheming about what my new setup is going to be so in this video i want to share with you all the stuff i just ordered for the new setup and i want to talk about things like the desk and the furniture and the art etc along with all the alternatives that i considered to kind of give you some inspiration and ideas as well and i think i've got some advice that you might actually find pretty useful when putting together your own dream office or desk setup so here's a picture of my most recent desk setup this is from last year at my old house pretty decent not too bad and this right here is my temporary setup right now pretty boring pretty lackluster basically i'm just using an old autonomous standing desk and some previous gear that i've just kind of had laying around but right now i have the opportunity to just start fresh start from scratch and say what do i want my ideal work environment to beat the end goal i guess is just for you guys to come along for the ride number one and then also get some inspiration some ideas in terms of products brands layouts whatever for your own setup so let me just quickly break down the main items that i ordered for the new setup starting with the desk which i got from room and board and don't worry i'm going to link up everything that i can down in the description some of it may be affiliate links some of it won't but i'll just make it as easy as i can for you to check this stuff out the desk the centerpiece the foundation of my new setup that i ultimately picked is the pratt desk it's 60 inches wide it's minimal and it's gonna be amazing it doesn't have any built-in storage you might notice but that's partly why it's so sleek but this model is super customizable which i love so i went with a walnut butcher block top sitting on a white frame this time i did not go looking for a standing desk very specifically for a very simple reason i never end up standing at my standing desk as it is so it's like i know i'm gonna sit why pretend so while i was at room and board i also grabbed a matching c-shaped end table from the pratt collection which i got for a very specific reason i'm excited about it i'm going to touch on it in just a minute but it's crucial to my overall plan now just getting back to the desk i was looking for something pretty basic pretty minimal and so i did consider some other options i considered the lena office desk from polly and bark i also considered the jorn media desk from inside weather and the super basic and also super cheap office desk from branch i also looked at things like the ford desk from zuri or the protractor from car deal and the monroe executive desk from creighton barrel now credit where credit is due my wife actually introduced me to the pratt desk so she gets full credit but the reason i ended up going with it is because you just can't beat the customization and for me for my space it turned out to be just the right size and even there i could customize now after i got that desk situation all sorted out since that's kind of the cornerstone of your desk setup your office space then i turned to a brand i found that i like called inside weather and i pretty much used them to round out all the rest of the furniture in the space so i picked up a sideboard slash credenza which yeah it looks pretty funky and arty because i customized it but i really love the inside weather lets you customize the ever loving crap out of everything which is really unique i've never seen anything like that also something else that i really liked about inside weather is that they make it really easy to view your furniture in ar in your space so you get a really good feel for the sizing and fit that way and i found that actually to be super useful now the sideboard that isn't just for storage or for looking good right it's actually also strategically placed to cover up the rat's nest that's surrounding my surge protector now that is what you call cable management i also got some bookcases i got a skinny one to go by the door and it was cool that they had an 18-incher that would fit and then i got a larger one for over by my window which i actually might move down to the studio and end up replacing if i find something better i kind of have something in my so you just have to stay tuned for the next episode in this little mini series to see what i went with i probably actually will put some books on the bookcases both like books that i'm going to read and maybe something that's even almost decorative i don't know if you go to fade in they have some really cool uh design books that are just organized by color and i've seriously considered just ordering them because i like the way that they look but they're also designed books so if you just want to peek in and look at some architecture or just art like something beyond just like youtube and my regular world sometimes you have to step out of your normal world to get some inspiration um then that could be cool now as i was sitting there dreaming about this setup and what i wanted to do it became obvious that i really wanted an alternative seating area so i wouldn't just be glued to the desk all the time i wanted like some other place to go and sit and work and this is where that c-shaped end table i told you about earlier comes into play it's going to be like an alternate mobile desk that i can just park in front of like a sofa or a chair i did find a few other cool c-shaped end tables though so i looked at the yo table from design within reach which actually is height adjustable which is nice and the mag table also from design within reach which is just super versatile because it can be used like three different ways then there was the colorful mark side table from hive which was kind of different and i came really close to buying the tobias network table from beam because it was a little bit wider and then there was the slim from room and board which was pretty cool too it's just at the end of the day instead of mixing and matching too much i thought i'll just have the consistency of having that match the desk so that's what i did and actually i was really leaning towards like a leather couch something just nice you know to lounge on that look good and so i found a few options there was a 72-incher that would fit in my space from poly embark and that was kind of cool and then i looked also at the block nomad from boro which is okay and then i also considered the hoxton loveseat from cb2 all of these being like smaller sized couches that could actually fit in that space or so i thought you know doing the measurements is like i think that will fit in the door it would definitely fit in my space where i wanted it but i wasn't sure i could get in the door so ultimately i decided against going with a couch that was hard to give up because i really wanted it but i was like you know what i'll just find a cool chair or some cool chairs what i did was i just decided to go with inside weather's espresso vita lounge chair and onyx vegan leather just because it was going to match everything that i'd already gotten from them and actually it's not that small of a chair it's got like a mid-century modern-y wing design that takes up quite a bit of space i knew i found out thanks to the ar demo so i'm definitely going to look forward to reading in the chair just kind of relaxing hanging out i do a lot of research so i can do that in the chair but i think more than anything because that end table it can slide right in i'm going gonna use it as an ipad station so when i'm typing or even when i'm just drawing or making sketches or some notes i think that is all gonna happen in that chair also i think there's just something for me about moving around it can kind of jostle your brain get some different ideas flowing you know if you're just parked at your desk you're literally just seeing the same thing all the time but if i have a chair i literally will get a different view because the last thing to talk about is the different art that i got to spread all over the office kind of provide some motivation and obviously be a source of inspiration too so at this point i'm not sure if you picked up on it but i'm kind of shooting for a black white walnut art look and so that's kind of coming through in all these different pieces stepping back and just looking at the big picture one of the things that i thought about when i was putting this together when i was dreaming this all up was maybe going for kind of an art museum-y kind of look now obviously can't just plop my desk down in the middle of denver art museum and get to work but what i can do is kind of bring the spirit of you know the architecture with the lines and the creativity the inspiration that's all over in there and put that in my workspace so that's what i was kind of trying to do to infuse it with um that kind of a look and level of creativity the thing is i think at least for me i tend to be more creative the more creativity i'm surrounded by and arguably some of the furniture that i got feels kind of like art itself you know the sideboard or the chair in particular you know like a lot of thought and design went into it it's kind of like sitting on a sculpture but in terms of the art that actually goes on the walls i did pick up some line art prints from inside weather they're 20 by 30 so fairly good sized i got three of those they're going to go on the wall over my desk and they all have a walnut frame that's going to kind of match everything else from inside weather which is a nice bonus then i also did kind of the standard startup e entrepreneur thing and i got some canvases from iconic which does have some motivational themed stuff some of which is borderline cheesy but there is some good stuff in there and they've done some cool collaborations like with garyvee so there is some worthwhile stuff so i got a few i went with the nobody cares work harder and the price of happiness canvases those are 30 by 40 inches and i'm gonna put those on the wall to my left when i'm sitting at my desk so over that sideboard and then i also got one called the climb which is longer to go over the top of the closet the other thing that i did though was i grabbed a couple of museum quality prints that i liked from andy blank which i'll put on the bookshelves maybe or maybe on top of the sideboard i'm not sure i guess just stay tuned for one of the future episodes and you'll see how everything actually pieces together but overall though i'm pretty excited with how i think everything's gonna turn out we'll see when it gets here and it gets all set up but yeah i'm feeling good about it now this has taken me weeks if not months of like research planning comparing stuff and i feel like throughout this whole process i have a few actionable tips that i can provide to make this go a little bit easier for you when you're creating your dream setup tip number one i feel like this is really important if you're gonna make your desk setup truly worth it it has to be yours what i'm saying is don't just go out and copy something that you saw on instagram because you like the way that it looked that's not going to be something that's tailor-made for you and that's really all that matters not the looks but the functionality so they say form follows function and i think that's good you should focus on the functionality the things that you need to accomplish and then think about the looks so for me the way to do that was to look at my current setup and maybe my previous setups and say what was working and what doesn't work like what do i need to change so for me i looked at the setup and i was like i know i need to build around an ultrawide monitor again because i just love it so what that translated to was me wanting a wider desk than i had been using similarly i looked at my desk and i was like one surface that's really not enough so that's why i ended up going with that side table and i even considered just getting two desks and maybe even sticking a blick surface skin on the second one kind of like what i've done here in the studio but obviously i ended up going in a different direction so i did get two surfaces but i didn't need i decided a huge surface for my second surface just that side table was going to be enough literally a place to set my ipad so all i'm just saying is when it comes time to redo your setup use your setup as a starting place don't use somebody else's because then you'll end up building it around your actual needs tip number two start keeping track of all the cool products and brands that you just randomly run into instead of just being like that's cool and flipping away from that tab or whatever like keep track of that stuff now the problem for me in the past when i was trying to keep track of stuff like that was how do i store it quickly so that it won't bog down for me because then i'll just be like if it takes too long i'm not going to save it and then how do i organize it and be able to find it later so that it's useful well the solution for me was to use my mind one of my all-time favorite apps covered it in a recent iphone apps video but it just lets me really simply and quickly save stuff i don't have to tag it or do anything the ai just handles all of that stuff and when i go into my mind i just search for desk or side table or art or whatever it is and it shows up my tip number three is just to visualize as much as you can so that could be ar like literally visualize it in space that was helpful um but not every company has that the thing that i did well two things actually one was to kind of make some sketches of stuff i did a lot of top-down sketches of my space which is just a square so that was really easy to do in apple notes with the apple pencil on the ipad and what really came in handy for me was the smart object so if you start drawing a shape just roughly and then you pause for just a second it will snap into a perfect square or circle or triangle or whatever and that's really great for just quickly and easily mocking up a room or some furniture you can draw an arrow the same way and label stuff so i did that the other thing that was really useful to me when i was doing that was you can use a selection tool and select whatever and then tap on it and you can duplicate it so you can kind of make the bare outline of your office duplicate it a few times and then even beyond that just taking some screenshots of stuff and maybe pasting in a link to something too so you can find it easily that was actually really useful i mean what that let me do was see what everything would look like next to each other or you can actually create a mood board there's lots of mood boarding apps i used muse which i've covered before in the latest ipad apps video uh and that was really helpful as well for just visualizing everything together so whatever method works best for you i would just recommend actually try to visualize it as much as you can alright so that's it so hopefully this video was useful like i said i'm going to make kind of a mini series out of this you know what i've realized is i can just ramble for so long this video i could probably make it three hours without cracking a sweat but i gotta wrap it up at some point i was actually shooting for nine and a half minutes i'm guessing it's gonna be more like 12 or 15 but we'll see thanks for watching let me know what questions you have don't forget i've linked stuff up down below actually linked it up not just listed it um to make this as useful as possible you guys can check me out i'm at daily tech spell daily tekk on instagram and twitter there's the daily tech after party that's the podcast uh it's returning for the new year here anyways good luck with your own setup don't forget to make it uniquely yours i'll catch you in the next video later\n"
