Minimal and Productive
work From Home (WFH) Setup
I am still in awe how quickly we have adapted the entire work from home culture since the pandemic started. Almost all of the IT folks have started working from their home. So many big companies have already extended the remote work policies until 2021, and few for forever (Forbes post). We can’t deny the fact that this is our new norm, working from home is not going to go away, even after the pandemic is over.
I have started embracing the change, I think I like the idea that I get to work, earn, and spend more time with my family, all at the same time. Though I wish I could go to the office sometimes, I miss being with the team, talking to my teammates, the small coffee breaks, and the standing desk I had in the office. Now that my home is also my workplace, I had to create some dedicated space for it.
It took a while for me to adjust between work and personal time. I used to spend more time even after the work hours, separating myself from work was sometimes difficult. That was because I was working from a laptop and I was carrying it everywhere and so did my work. There was no clear distinction between my work and personal work on my laptop.
Another problem I faced and still do sometimes is the work schedule. Work from home comes with the freedom to start your work anytime and stop anytime, and sometimes we might take it lightly. When we used to go to the office, we had the work schedule, 8 am to 5 pm in my case, and we had to follow it. Since I am not forced to go to the office now, I sometimes forget to start work on time and stop work on time.
James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits, inspired me to make environmental changes for building good habits. (You can read more about the book in my blog post: Book for building good habits ) And I knew, I had to come up with work from home setup to get over the above problems, to separate my work from personal life.
Call it a mini-office or just a simple desk, but having a dedicated space has been helping me to separate work from other aspects of my life. My desk is where I work, once the office hours are done, I shut down my PC and be done with the work. No more of taking the work on my laptop to another space. This small environmental change of dedicated desk for my work helped me get into the habit of login into work on time and stop my work on time.
Productive, simple, and minimal were the key things I was after when I started building the setup. It was hard because I wanted it to be budget-friendly too.
I couldn’t afford the standing desk, so I built a DIY monitor stand for a more ergonomic position. I like a clutter-free desk, so I went with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, also wireless phone charger stand. Noise-canceling, over the head, headphones come in handy on days when I am in back to back calls.
Let me go over how I built my desk setup. Don’t we all like saving money, I sure do, so I made sure I don’t overspend building this.
The center of attraction of all the setups, the desk. I bought the parts from Ikea. My goal was to have space for all the needed accessories and still have enough space to draw on my Surface Pro 7 (check out my drawing page).
The desk is not overpriced but looks pricey with bamboo finishing. It’s super easy to assemble.
The desk has two parts
The total cost to build desk was $45.99. You can get the smaller tabletop for only $9 and the table will cost you even cheaper.
Why I needed a monitor stand is because of the neck pain I was having due to improper posture we tend to get in while working long hours on a laptop. The monitor stand helps me have a good ergonomic viewing angle for the monitor. Again, I didn’t want to spend a lot of money buying fancy monitor stand so I searched online and found that I could build my own using parts from Ikea.
To build this DIY monitor stand, I bought the shelf and legs from Ikea.
- Shelf: BURHULT
- Legs: CAPITA Leg
The total cost to build this was only $15. It’s clean, elegant, and provides space to store my keyboard, mouse, and headphones when I don’t need them.
Gone are the days of wires, Welcome the wireless tech. I hate wires, they add so much of clutter. Thanks to the Bluetooth tech, I can have a clutter-free desk. I can put away the keyboard and mouse without worrying about wires whenever I need space for drawing.
I chose the wireless keyboard and mouse with good reviews on amazon.
- The keyboard by Logitech is great. You can connect to 3 devices and switch between them.
- I didn’t go with the fancy brands for a mouse, Bluetooth mouse by Tecknet is cheap, has ok build quality, and great reviews. I have been using it for over a year and happy with it.
- Wireless charger by Anker is a simple solution for not losing battery on my phone
- Noise Cancelling headphones by Sony are comfortable for long hours and sound great
Logitech Keyboard
Bluetooth Mouse
Wireless Charger
Headphones
-Affiliate links
I also keep a notebook on my desk, which I use for tracking my daily office tasks. I know I can use a digital app for it but having a pen and notebook makes me feel more responsible for my tasks. It’s always in front of me, unlike a digital app that I will have to open and close every time I need it.
I also started using Google Home as a Bluetooth speaker for my desktop besides just asking google to play some music, and get updates on weather and news.
Powering my desk is the PC I bought from Best Buy. There were two reasons I got the PC. First, to have a dedicated workstation for the office work which I couldn’t carry anywhere unlike my laptop. Second, to have a capable machine on which I could edit my drawing videos and occasionally play games
Best Buy: Cyberpower PC
Covid-19 has changed our lives, it has impacted most of the IT industry and we all have started working from home (WFH). Most of the time, I like WFH but for sure I miss the office setup.
It took some time for me to adjust to our new ways of WFH culture. The hardest part for me was to balance work and personal life. Well, one might ask don’t you have more personal life now that we are working from home. The answer is YES but at the same time I found it hard to stop work on time and I ended up working more than my supposed to be work time. I had to find a solution, and I made some environmental changes for work and ended up with this desk setup.
The WFH desk setup I built has been helping me to balance my workspace and personal one. I know my desk environment is just for work and I restrict myself to just work on my desk and not carry my work anywhere else. I have made a schedule to login and logoff around the same time.
Building the desk was fun, I made sure that I keep my desk simple and big enough to work and draw. I try to keep my desk minimal, clean, and organized. I use my desk for work on weekdays and to draw on weekends, on my surface laptop.
Share with me how do you balance the work and personal life being home. How did you adjust to WFH life? Did you face any challenges adjusting to WFH? Do you have any tips for me?
References
Here are the links of the books I recommend for building better habits..
Atomic Habits
The Power Habits
Show your Work
The setup certainly looks good, can’t wait to see it in person. My setup is not as optimized as yours but this (link below) laptop desk helps me to use it as sitting and standing desk when put on a table.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DJ5F15J/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Thanks, buddy. Yes, I would say the monitor stand or a laptop stand is a MUST for better body posture.
Very well said. I have similar experience too. My employer supported WFH by shipping additional equipment( monitors, keyboard, mouse, wireless headsets)to set up a dedicated workspace. We had a trial WFH day early march during the start of the pandemic, so most of the people went home only with laptop to try if WFH works. Guess what, we never returned to office since then. The idea of shipping additional equipment was to force people to set up a workspace, and make them feel as close to their office as they can. It has worked very well and we are seeing even better productivity that work from office.
Hey Thanks, Ajinkya. Wish I could ask my employer for goodies. 🙂 Nice to see the employers seeing and finding the value sending equipment to employees. Most of all, It must benefit us as well, and I am happy that you are making most out of it.