- Working from home is now more popular than it's ever been before. And the reality is most people
don't know the possibilities that they could implement into
their workspace home office or their current desk situation. And in this video, we're going
to be sharing three ideas on how you can level up your home office. - Yeah, you know, the Think Media team, we've been working from home for years and we've made so many mistakes. So in this video you're gonna see three different content creators set up and make sure you stick
around until the end because we're going to be
sharing three productivity hacks that will help you get
more done in less time. So you can spend more time with
the people that matter most and create better work - [Narrator] You gotta just press record. - Hey, what's up. It's Omar Takrori and Heather
Torres with Think Media helping you build your
influence with online video and on this channel sometimes
we do YouTube strategy tips, camera reviews as well
as home office ideas, just like this one. So if you're new here,
consider subscribing. - And here at Think Media,
we call it a battle station. Yes, you're working from home, but this is where the chicken gets good. This is where the sausage gets made. Okay, okay. And here at Think Media, we
call it your battle station. Yes, you're working from home but this is where it all happens. So you're going to see
Omar's battle station my battle station and Shawn
Canales' battle station. We're going to start with Sean's first where he actually shows not
only how he uses his main setup, but how he's converted
his on the road laptop to being another battle station. That's a lot of battle statements. (upbeat music) - [Narrator] You gotta just press record. - Hey, what's up. Sean Cannell here with
Think Media bringing you the best tips and tools
for building your influence with online video. And in this video I just
kinda wanna take you behind the scenes with a new setup
that I'm working on for energy and health and productivity
here at my home office. It seems like everybody
is working from home now and the future is going to
be a lot more remote work. And so in this video I'm going
to be sharing five big ideas that I think could help you
maybe upgrade your setup and think about how you
could speed up your workflow. And the first one is the
idea of a sit stand desk. You know, I actually
spend most of my time in the other office at a
desk that's so massive and has has so much stuff going on that it can't really transform
into a sit-stand desk unless I put like risers
on it or something. So what I do is because I'm
here kind of on my loft at home I like to come out here for
work off right off my laptop. Video editing, a lot of just meetings a lot of simple things like that, admin, work like that to
give myself more flexibility. This particular model
is an Apex Desk Flex Pro and it's a sit-stand desk
with electronic controls. It's got an app to it. Nice big surface. I actually did a full video about that. So I'll put that in
the YouTube description and you can see everything I talk about in this video down there. But, you know, with the
sedentary lifestyles that a lot of us lead I think trying to get some sort of a
standing desk setup is a goal we should all have. Sitting has been linked to heart disease and all kinds of things like that. And standing desks are known
not just to boost health, but also productivity. And so I love working from here
to kind of switch things up and boost my energy and because
it has electronic controls it's super easy to go from
a sit to a stand position. So I'm able to just sit down if needed and kind of switch up my
workflow throughout the day. Next up is the laptop docking station. This is a Twelve South BookArc, super nice little grippy feet on there. And you put the perfect piece in there to match your MacBook Pro, 2017, 15-inch MacBook Pro. And with that up like this, it's not just the
cleanliness and the look, we've really noticed that with better air
flow around our laptops here at Think Media you actually get better
editing performance. It makes sense because maybe the processor and things like that are able
to get rid of extra heat. From there, it's actually plugged into a CalDigit TS3 Plus Thunderbolt Dock. That gives you 15 ports of connectivity and the ability to have some
front ports, your SD card, everything else on there. And with just one cable you're charging and your sending data and
audio and everything else. Additionally, there is the magic mouse and the magic keyboard. You just got to charge these
up every once in a while, but it's a really cool workflow
with everything wireless and you can just plug it in one cable and you're good to go as far as editing and doing anything else you needed to do. And then there's also this
extra large mouse pad, which is nice for a little bit of cushion as you rest your arm on here and the ability to just
kind of have a surface a little bit different than the desktop, which does pick up some fingerprints. So this kind of solves that and is just a nice cohesive workflow. And then three is the
monitor and the monitor arm. And so this is a 32 inch BenQ monitor. The model number is the EDW 32 ADU and BenQ was super kind
to send out a review unit and I've been loving it. It's really a Jack of all trades monitor. The image quality is fire. It's an IPS panel that
supports over a billion colors. The color accuracy, a
lot of reviews I've seen and even from putting my eyes on it, is good enough right out of
the box for color grading. And it's actually an
entertainment focused monitor. And so it's really not a
full on gaming monitor, but if you wanted to do console gaming, you wanted to watch, you
know, YouTube content or videos or blue rays, it has all those features. Additionally, it is great
for video editing at 4k with a full native
resolution of 3840 by 2160. It's got a refresh rate of 60 Hertz. And that nice 16:9 aspect ratio. Right out of the box it's a great monitor that kind of does everything
that I need it to do. And another thing that's
cool about this monitors you actually have built-in speakers and usually monitor speakers are not great and it's not like they change the world, but you do have 2.1 sound. You got a subwoofer on the back. We'll talk about sound a little bit later with the headphones, but it's nice to have a
little volume right here in case you want to demo some content, demo and edit, play a video for the team
that's over something like that. And it also comes with a little remote so that you can really easily
adjust the monitor settings. It is a proper HDR monitor and it's HDRI meaning like intelligent. It's got a little scanner on there that like figures out the ambient light and it even does some
things to like adjust the white balance and whatnot. It's all pretty slick and it'll even simulate HDR. So even here we can go in just kind of a flat mode right here, but there you can kind
of layer and display HDR, even if the content itself is not HDR. So that's pretty cool. And I think one of the most
powerful things about it is it actually does have USB-C on the back with power delivery. So you actually don't need
something like this CalDigit. You can go straight from the monitor into a USB-C port on a laptop
and run all that content. And the reason for this really is that eventually I'm going to
be upgrading some boom arms with the USB mic. I'm going to be setting up the webcam or rather kind of more
of like a cam link set up with a proper camera on
another boom arm lighting, you know, a couple other things. And I didn't want to plug the
peripherals into the laptop. I wanted that to just be
like an in and out flow. And so the integration of
it all works really nice. And so one of my overall goals here was to have a nice big monitor that had the flexibility of
working at a standing desk with a super solid stand. I encourage you don't cheap
out on the monitor stand because this guy comes
in at almost 18 pounds. You got to read the reviews if you're grabbing
something off of Amazon. I picked up this vivo model and I saw a lot that were around $75. This one's like 100, 120, but you definitely get what you pay for. You've got the ability to
actually really tighten it down and it'll hold the monitor
in whatever place you need to hold it in. You've got some cable management there and just a lot of functionality with where you can bring the monitor to, which gives us the ability to, you know, sit over here or do whatever we need in terms of gathering around
the all in one monitor for the kind of stuff that we need
to do here at Think Media. All right, so we've
covered the standing desk. We've covered the laptop dock as well as the monitor and arm. And if you've been getting
value out of this video so far can you lightly press the like button and let me know in the comments what are you planning on upgrading
next in your home office? But the next kind of category for this is accessories for standing and mixing up standing and sitting. And so this is actually
one of my favorite things that I have. It's a fluid stance kind of board. This is a super fun board that actually kind of
makes your standing desk not just fun and engaging, but it kind of keeps you
moving around a little bit, keeps your, your toes,
your joints being soothed. It kind of burns more calories and kind of better than just
sort of locking your legs or just standing there doing nothing. And so kind of becomes
like the ultimate way. I find myself just going
to one side to the other and just really being engaged and trying to activate all of my body while I'm working on content. And of course, one of the nice things about having a sit stand desk is switching it up throughout the day. And so we've got the electronic controls. I've got the presets. If I want to just drop down into sit mode, a couple of things that I
like, I use an exercise ball. I got to actually add a
little bit more air to it, but that's a good way to keep
your core engaged, right? And then I've also got
this stool right here. We've got two of these from
like Costco workbench tools, nice little back to them. And we also use them for shooting. So you can have different heights for like you versus Heather
on the Think Media team or Omar, somebody else, but also another cool way to be able to, again, go from like the fluid
stance to the exercise ball, to the stool, to standing. A lot of versatility so that
she can stay engaged all day, which brings me to the fifth category. And that is, I really think you should
install a headphone hanger, nice organized way to do audio and get your headphones,
you know, out of the way and hang them down there. I've got the Sony WH-1000 M3 and these guys are killer. The built-in speakers are nice because I really don't want
to install any other speaker, you know, things on the desk to keep the desk as minimal as possible. And that's going to kind
of go away once I get all the scissor arms and cameras and lighting, but even still the speakers
built into the monitor are good enough for when
I don't need headphones. But the main thing I'm
going to edit off these. They've got the built in microphone. So for all the Zoom calls and even interviews and things like that, they're really good to just have the audio right off the headphones and then have noise canceling. Man I got a baby on the way. Come on parents shout
me out in the comments. And I'm also hearing the loft. So sometimes there's just
general noise in the house. So if I want to get in the
zone, edit some footage, do some work, noise, canceling
microphone, headphones, full deal, wireless,
kind of a really cool way to make this workflow even more optimized. - Wow, Sean's set up is super cool. I legit love how he uses the his MacBook to kind of power up his whole thing. And, you know, I honestly
didn't know too much about being able to do that and how that was even a possibility that like my laptop it could be a desktop, but it was actually Kyle, one of the editors here at Think Media, who like, you know, did the research. And he was like, bro, if
you get this CalDigit device you could literally
turn in your laptop into whatever you want it to be. But nonetheless, I wanted to talk about our
sponsor in today's video and that is Stream Yard. Stream Yard is how we do our
online trainings and interviews and live stream straight
to YouTube and Facebook. You can easily implement cool transitions between your slides and yourself, as well as bring on guests
and interview them as well. You can sign up for Stream Yard down into the description below and
save some money by doing that. - And in the next clip we're
going to jump into my setup. Now all of the gear that
we've listed in all of the setups will be down in
the description box below. So if you want to check out
mine or Omar's or Sean's everything will be listed down below. Also, if you're getting value
so far out of this video smash the like button and let's jump into Heather
Torres' is actual setup. What is it called? Battle station. (upbeat music) If we're just meeting my
name is Heather Torres and I'm the COO here at Think Media and my role is really unique. I'm doing everything from live streaming, creating content just like this, as well as doing things like writing copy, making Facebook ads, and helping the creators
move the content forward. So I'm going to share with you some of the things that I use, but my role really allows
me to be versatile. I like to use my laptop. I like to be here at my home office, but I also love the
versatility of being able to go anywhere. So let me show you what
I have set up in here. First off, I've got my desk, bought this at Ikea, love Ikea. And I love having a big long desk. It allows me to be able to do my work, but if I need to be taking notes or if I have a creator
come over and work with me I've got a space for them as well. So I like having a really
long clean white desk. Second, I've got my computer. I love using my Dell laptop. This is just a gaming laptop. And I'll link down below all of the things that I'm using here in my home office. But I love this laptop
because it allows me to do things like live streaming as well as using my second monitor. So I've got a second
monitor set up in my office and it comes on an arm. So I purchased an arm so I can
move the monitor up and down, allows me to have a lot of versatility in doing standing live
streamings and trainings, but also allows me to have two monitors so I can have things like my Slack open and have things like my Facebook ads that I'm working through
open at the same time. I've got my webcam. I love using the Logitech webcam. It's a super simple, easy webcam
that makes you look great. And then I've got my soft boxes. I love having the soft boxes because they just allow for more light to be inside of this dark room. I like that I can move them
around so I can change my shot. So if I'm doing a video like
this I can move it around the room to give me different angles while I'm producing content. The microphone that I'm using for creating our inner circle
trainings or going live on the Think Marketing
podcast is the Blue Yeti. And if you want to check out
more about that microphone I'll list it in the description below or you can click the
link in the YouTube card. Now I work long hours and I don't think that you should be working
sitting down the whole time. So let me show you my hack
for getting a standing desk while I'm working. I got this on Amazon and I love
it because it's adjustable. So I pull this bad boy
out, open up the legs. I can put it down here,
put my laptop right on top. And now I have a standing desk
while I'm doing all my work. On this wall I've got a
whole wall of bookshelves and I love books. I'm a homeschooling mom. And so I've got my kids'
books and my books. I think it's so important to
have a nice clean background for things like Zoom calls with brands or having team meetings or going live and being able to make sure that you've got a clean
backdrop that represents you. You know, I'm a creator, I'm also a mom and I'm a homeschooling mom. And so I want things that are going to represent me in our YouTube videos. And I love having books around me. So that was the setup that
I use here at Think Media. Now what's really cool, Omar, is Christmas came early for Heather and I've actually
upgraded my entire setup. I got a door in my office,
which is really critical when it comes to building
a battle station. - Cool at that. especially with the kids running around - Especially with the kids. But I just moved my office actually into another room of my house. And I did a couple of different upgrades that I really got
inspired through what you and Sean have done. That is one of our tips, which is actually using a standing desk. You get more productive when you're able to not just sit at home, but when you're able to
actually work standing up. So one of the upgrades that I just did was investing in a standing desk, I'll link that desk down below, video coming soon on what that looks like, but I also then upgraded
to two 30-inch monitors. It's pretty crazy. It's a whole battle station, but it was it over time. So I just want to encourage you that if you're seeing my
setup or Omar's set up or Sean's set up and you're thinking, wow that seems really unrealistic for the timeframe that I'm in know that this is something
you can always be growing and adding to. I think one thing about
working from home is just figuring out how you work best and then starting to add
more and more into that. - And, you know, the reality is, I don't think this video
should be like you need to buy this in order to get started. I think more than anything, this video should just give you ideas to start like, oh, I didn't even know you can
buy a mount for your desk to be able to put your
mic on or what have you. And so more than anything, I hope you get great
ideas out of this video, but let's jump into my setup, which I'm super pumped about because I talk about essentially setting up an
actual office space in my house. And so you'll get some ideas
on design and things like that and stick around through it because I also share
three productivity hacks that'll help you create more
content or be more productive. So check it out. (upbeat music) One of my favorite
interior design aesthetics is called mid century modern. And so I definitely wanted to implement that in my office from the
decision of my leather chair to the tones of wood that I'm using with the furniture that I'm buying. And you can get a lot of great
ideas on Pinterest as far as the direction and aesthetic
you're trying to go for when designing a space, but that's just the one I like. Now I'm going to be breaking
down this video into the four various areas in
my office that I use most. And so let's start with my workstation. So this is where I spend a
lot of my time editing video, scripting videos, as well as
doing a majority of my work like emails and calendars
and stuff like that. This is kind of just where
I spend most of my time. And essentially it is a closet
that I've painted black. And so I can put the desk inside of and maximize the square
footage of this room. And so I have a sit stand desk that I got on Wayfair that I love. And it's also glass on the top. And so you can write and
erase with a dry erase marker which is pretty cool. For all my work I use a 2018 MacBook Pro with an I9 internal core as
well as a one terabyte SSD, which actually isn't much. And I'll get into how I work
around that in just a second. But the monitor I use is
a 32-inch 4k IPS monitor from View Sonic. I love this monitor because
it's kind of edgeless. You don't really see too much black around the monitor itself. But everything is ran
through this CalDigit hub. This device allows my MacBook Pro to sort of become a desktop computer with just the use of one USB-C cord. What's super cool about this hub is I can run everything through it. Like my monitor, my power, has an SD card reader, as
well as my two terabyte SSD that I load all my footage on. And so that's kind of how I get by my one terabyte internal
SSD from my laptop, is I expand it by using a two
terabyte SSD from Samsung. And we'll be sure to post links down in the description below to
everything I mentioned here in this video. So feel free to check that out. Now as far as keeping it
super clean and wireless, I love using my wireless keyboard
and Magic pad from Apple. These are just two cool investments that just allow me to simply come in, hook up my laptop with one
cord, and just get to work. Over to my left, I have
a pegboard from Ikea that I use to kind of just
hang cords and SD cards, other SSDs, things that
I need to grab quickly, I just put over there. So it's kind of hidden. So when you walk into the
office, you don't see it, but I do like having
that readily accessible and it does help that it's white contrasting
with the black walls. Now for cable management, I've just taken a power
strip with multiple outlets and I have command stripped
it to the bottom of my desk and I've just plugged
everything into that. And then all the loose
wires, I use a kit from Ikea that they actually sell to
help with cable management has Velcros, zip ties
and things like that. And so I use that kit to
just clean up the cables. And so with all that I have going on by the look of things it is definitely clean and minimal just how I like it. Now, the next part of my
office is my second desk that I have on wheels. And I love having this desk because I use it for
YouTube videos to be able to switch up the angle and
still have a desk at hand as well as just a good place
with good window lighting. So if I'm doing Zoom calls and I don't need any
lighting to light my face I just open up my blinds and
let the natural light come in. But this desk is super clutch, as well as just using this as
a place to shoot thumbnails or product photography. It's just super clutch being able to move it up against a light or if you need to get behind
it, we can just easily move it. If I had to choose one desk,
I would actually have this especially shooting YouTube videos so I could maneuver my stuff around. And this desk I found on Wayfair, but just a desk with
wheels is just a good look. And I've been testing
this USB mic from Amazon that I think is pretty cool literally for around $70. It comes with everything you see and everything you need to get going as far as shooting a podcast or leveling up your
audio for your Zoom calls and stuff like that. But again, we'll put links to everything in the description below. Now the third area of my
office is the seating area. And I have this futon couch
that I found on OfferUp that I love. It definitely has that mid-century look. And then I have three framed words that I just designed in Photoshop
and got printed at FedEx but it's the words, character, humility, and consistency. These just are cool contrasting to the white walls that I have. And then I have a fiddle-leaf fig plant. Again all these things
kind of coming together for that mid-century modern
look I'm I like going for. And then underneath my futon
I do use as extra storage. I have this bin from
Ikea that I just pull out and grab anything I need. And then that leads me to the
fourth place of my office, which is my gear center. I really love this cabinet
that I found at Ikea. It houses my cameras, my
lenses, and my batteries. Much of my other gear
if it's not in this room it's just put elsewhere. And I just wanted to keep it super clean, but this is a gear closet that
I like using as a background. And I also have some
lights that I got from Ikea to bring some bouquet
or Boca into my shot. And so that's kind of
the way I house my camera and my lenses and stuff like that. All right, so there you have it. That is the tour of my simple, minimal YouTube office studio space. And I want to share four
tips on why I did things the way I did. This is a very intentional
design that I had. But the first tip is to design your office with your backgrounds in mind. And that just takes a lot of
things just to think about, you know, like, could
you use multiple walls to create videos? You know, I use this office and I probably have four
to five different angles that I can use in this same
box, I guess you could say. And it's because I've designed
with the corners in mind, you know, like I've made flat shots, make sure that those are clean and cool, but you've probably seen the various ways I've used this room and we'll show, you know, the role of that of other videos I've done where, you know, I've,
I've moved around, but yet, you know, it's still the same room. Another thing is just
like the little details. And so stuff like taking out
the glass in your framed images or on your, you know, art on your wall, is it reflective? Like I don't want the lights
that we have going on, you know, shooting reflections on the stuff I have on the wall. And so that's just
something to keep in mind. The second tip is to
treat your room for audio. You know, I have a tiled room, the ceilings are kind of high, but a few things you can do
to treat your room for audio is number one furniture. You know, actually
furnishing an office space with like clothy type furniture. So like this couch I got right here. Also rugs, you know, I got this rug from Ikea. It's $25 rug from Ikea. These types of things do help, but I also have an audio
blanket that I use. And you know, this is an
actual audio treatment blanket that you can get from Amazon. And we'll put links to everything that we can into the description below. Obviously you can't buy my couch because I bought it on OfferUp, but I I've actually put
hooks all around my office to be able to move this
blanket that hangs. It's a 10 pound blanket
and it's pretty thick, but whatever direction I am
talking to in this in my office I will hang the blanket
behind the, you know, or I guess you could say in front of me. So my audio isn't just
bouncing off the walls, but it's actually going
to dampen that echo. And so just something to
keep in mind is to make sure that your, your room and we use, we always say that 50% of video is audio. And so if you can help it by helping treat your office space. If it's carpeted you're most likely good, but if it's high ceilings you might want to look into something like this, but again we'll put links to everything in the description below. Now, the next tip is to
simply cut the clutter. I found more than ever that clutter cripples your creativity. And I don't like things
just like all over the place or out on the, on my desk all the time. You know, I like things put away and being a content creator,
as well as doing, you know, freelance work and stuff like that, that that this gear closet that
you see in here right there is literally just housing
probably a quarter of all the gear I own. And I've actually stored
away gear in other places like the garage and closets. But clutter for sure is something
you want to just tackle. And, you know and that can,
that can come into play with, in regards to like cable management. Are your cables just everywhere? You know, I like to clean
my, clean up my cables, zip tie them, and keep them away, as well as using things
like, you know bins and stuff and putting stuff bins. You know, I got this
bin underneath my couch. But I'm cutting the clutter will help you, you know, think better,
you know, create better. Even, even when I'm just
editing I don't want to have like my lights
and everything on me. And so by all that, all that
to say, cut the clutter. And the last tip I have for you
is to aim for functionality. You know, more than ever do I want my room to be
able to be maneuvered? You know, I want to be
able to move things around. And so, you know, that's why I got a desk with wheels on it because I
can move it around the room. I got a couch that's not really heavy and can be easily picked up and moved, but this room is very modular, but also I got the sit stand desks. You know, if I want to
stand up and edit video, I can do that. But just always think about
ways you can use your space to be more functional. You know, I have my underneath my shelf that's where I charge all my batteries if some some more simple to go to. And then I put my batteries on the shelf that are fully charged on top of that. But just something to keep in mind. - Okay, so basically Omar, I just want to be you when I grow up. Your style is so on point when it comes to setting
up with the design I love how you've got that black wall. What a cool idea. And so creative to think about
not seeing any color behind and just the amazingness
that you have of the artwork. And, ah, I just love it so much. - No, I definitely, like
Heather mentioned earlier that it takes time. I mean, I'm always constantly
moving my office around just based off of like what
makes it feel more easy to use and things like that. But nonetheless, I hope
this video didn't, you know, leave you discouraged in the sense that you need all these
things that we have. We've honestly grown into what
you see now at Think Media. And, you know, like we said,
we made a lot of mistakes and now we're just kind
of even fine tuning still. But I hope you got ideas out of this video more than anything that you know, that you can buy something
like a TS3 Hub for your laptop, or you know that you can
buy a mount for a mic or you know that you can use your camera as your webcam for your Zoom calls. And so more than anything, I hope you got great
ideas out of this video. And if you actually want to check out. - Wait, question of the day. We forgot a question today. - Who had the best one? - And question of the day
drop down in the comments are you Team Sean, Team
Heather, or Team Omar? - Okay, which person
had the tightest office? Drop it down in the comments below. And if you want to check out
another video from Think Media be sure to click or tap the screen. If you wanna check out
another video you can do that right underneath that. And we can't wait to
see you in a future one. Peace. (upbeat music)
