🖥️ My Work Desk

Does having a fantastic work desk really help in increasing your productivity?

Workspace can be more than a desktop, table and chair. To me, it's a place where I stimulate new ideas and creativity.

I got very curious about setting up work desks since my childhood. Ever since I got a separate room, I decided to set up my workspace. I love setting up work desks both at my home and at my workplace and especially I take extra care in setting up my workspace in my room.

PS: I take inspiration from Matthew Encina who gives unique ideas for setting up work desks and more precisely I love his way of setting up mechanical keyboards. Check out his videos here.

With just saying that I would love to share my perspectives on setting up work desks.

🙋🏽‍♂️ My Perspective...

There is this myth that your environment has to be perfect in order to make you productive. Yes, I do love decorating my work desk. I have this cute little plant, a poster, a few photos, lights, etc. But that doesn’t mean that I require these things to be kinda more productive. Yes, they help in creating a nice ambience and but they are not requirements. I would love to tag them as “Preferred indifference”.

These are just fake requirements and don’t mean that you need them to make you productive and isn’t it nice to have them on your desk?

That doesn’t mean that you need to take your laptop and sit in Starbucks to get your work done. (But I do that seldom xP). Because people have been known to do amazing things since the dawn of time without having two monitors or an exciting work environment. But make sure that you at least satisfy the basic needs or requirements to get your work done. A proper chair and a proper table are more than enough to get your things done.

🎮 Few stuff in setting up your desk

• Alpha & Beta waves, Harry Porter BGM - Playing very subtle background music can really helps in reducing your stress. Especially white noises like Alpha waves, Beta waves which are available on Spotify.

• Scented Candlelight - Lighting a small scented candlelight at your work desk boosts your ambience.

• Water bottle - Hydrate yourself.

• Fake plants - If you can maintain a real plant, then great. Otherwise have a fake plant. As studies show that green colours help our minds to be active.

• A3 sheets - Having large A3 sheets at your desk can make you more creative (especially for students). Create mindmaps, flow charts or any visual graphics on A3 sheets.

• Sticky notes - Physical papers really help in jotting down the to-do things and you get this feeling of satisfaction when you strike after you completed the task.

• Extended Monitor - If you edit videos or do a lot of photoshop, then you will definitely need a high refresh rate monitor.

• Posters - They are not mandatory though but why not.

• Photos of your close ones - If you are living alone, then decorating your work desk with photos of your friends and family can create a homely feel.

If you are still looking for inspiration to set up your desk, have a glance at my workspace. Also, check out my room tour by TIMVIX here.

My work-from-home workspace

My student workspace in France

🕰️ Pomodoro Technique

At the same time, it can be very tiring to see your workspace for long hours. That's why I follow this amazing time management method called the Pomodoro Technique. In fact, Ali Abdaal (aka "The Productivity Guru"), one of my favourite Youtubers, has many times articulated the importance of this technique which basically means you work for 25 mins, have a 5 min break and get back to work for another 25 mins and have a 5 min break.

This cycle repeats and it really helps you in increasing your productivity by breaking work into intervals.

💡 Bonus tip: Apparently you can use pomofocus.io which is an online Pomodoro Timer.

(Thank me later :P)