My Productivity Desk Setup (2021)

[Music] hey friends welcome back to the channel into 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 2 terabyte hard drive which is fantastic for all the large video files that i normally have to deal with and connected to the mac mini via usbc is this huge ass lg 49-inch ultrawide 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 the desktop 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 just the mouse is a little bit like when you scroll whereas the trackpad it's like ah it's a joy to scroll with the trackpad the trackpad is also great for those gestures like you know four finger swipe up three finger 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 iq unix 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 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 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 cal digit 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 dog 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 to 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 u2 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 will 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 cloud lifter which is a 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 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 in standing mode and in terms of chair now this is very exciting because this is the home and miller sale 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 mom for permission to spend 700 pounds on a chair and she would say hell no why the hell would you spend 700 pounds in 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 when they delivered it there was a guy from hermann 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 but like this this was bad ergonomically according to this home and 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 at the 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 want to be a real flex you can be like oh yeah and do do that whole flexing the pecs or whatever that is and you can lock it and i can't go back on it so herman middlesale 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 qc700s and now my new airpod pro max whatever these things are called on the hooks underneath my desk it's mostly been the airports that i've been using for the last week or so but the bose qc700 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 ugg monk 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 ugg monk 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 like little bits for it and it comes with like a starter kit so this is like the starter kit and it's really cool because it's got like a 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 a 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 ugg monk 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 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 going to 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 the 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 i should do that at least that's what i pretend to do and finally again from ugg monk 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 clam rats and this was a group of university friends uh 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 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 two tablet now 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 loudest 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 a an overkill device for just busting out 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 two 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 uh on top of the draw unit unit i've got my little uh japanese cup thingies one of which stores lots of pens and marker 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 i usually have on top of the alex raw 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 yeah whatever i also usually have a camera lens this is the sony 1635 uh g master and at the moment i'm filming on the 24 millimeter f 1.4 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 a7 3 which normally features as part of my overhead rig with the tamron 28 to 75 millimeter lens on it and i normally have my physical notebook this is the leuchtturm 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 thomann's desk lamp which sort of looks like one of those articulating pixary 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 night time i'd say alexa turn on relax in the living room and that turns the lights nice and warm and dim and that's the setup 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 get 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 aputure 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 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 setup 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 aperture 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 a73 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 on 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've watched this far and you're seeing this message you're definitely going to 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 want to check out my productivity materials which is more than just get a fancy desk set up 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 like this video and you want to see more of it 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

Channel: Ali Abdaal

Views: 1,008,751

Rating: 4.9085846 out of 5

Keywords: Ali Abdaal, Ali abdal, productivity desk setup, clean desk setup, techie desk setup, desk organization, desk makeover, productivity desk tour, workspace setup, workspace tour, productive workspace, productive desk setup, ugmonk, desk tour 2021, desk setup 2021, productivity desk 2021, productivity desk 2020, productivity room, room tour, home office setup, desk tour, desk setup, small home office, home office tour, minimal desk setup, desk setup 2020, home office design

Id: 5791L8VEHZw

Length: 15min 38sec (938 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 14 2021