My Workspace
It seems like sharing your workspace is all the rage this week and since everyone else is doing it, I figured I will too. Before I get into sharing my space I should prefix mine with a note that I change my home office a lot. I’d estimate every 90 days or so, I rearrange it somehow just to freshen it up and make me feel like I have a new place.
Workspace
I’ve been trying to put a focus on more analog tools so I’ve moved the computer off to the side to have more room for reading and writing. It’s been working pretty well and I have a typical office chair that spins so it’s easy to move my body toward the computer as I’m working.
The rest of my office features an IKEA bookshelf and hutch under the windows, then a comfy chair for reading or relaxing.
It’s all pretty minimal but that is how I like it and try to keep it free from clutter.
Desk
My desk is an IKEA VÄSTANBY table and it has plenty of room. On the desk, I have an iMac on the left, a few books that I’m reading or want for quick reference, an awesome pencil holder made by my friend Jesse Schutt, a Midori travelers notebook, and Rhodia grid notebook. Above the desk is two paintings by Ninjagrl.
Computer
The computer on the desk is an iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014) with a 4 GHz Intel Core i7 and 16 GB memory. It’s plenty for what I do and I’ve not hit the limits. My secondary computer that isn’t shown is a 12″ Macbook and I honestly love developing on it. Something about having that small screen and only being able to focus on one thing at a time is freeing.
Music
I just went all in on Apple Music (follow me @ericlbarnes) because the family just liked its integration into Apple products and I’m still trying to get used to it. I have a very weird music taste and you never know what I’m going to listen too. Lately, though I’ve been doing a lot of classical and jazz. Loving some Charlie Parker.
I typically just try to find playlists for focus music and just have it repeat all day. When the kids get home from school I’ll throw my headphones in so I’m disturbed by their loudness.
Mac Apps
I’ve been trying to stick with only a few core Mac Apps and these are the main ones I use now:
- Apple Mail (I recently switched)
- Safari as the primary browser and Firefox for developing
- Slack
- Basecamp
- Telegram
- VS Code (my setup)
- PhpStorm
- Alfred
- Moom
- Github Desktop
- Todoist (checkout 5 min productivity)
- iTerm
- SequelPro
Editor Setup
I’m using Dracula for PhpStorm and the Operator Mono font.
VS Code is set up basically the same and I switch between each depending on the task at hand. On my MacBook, I also use VS Code but I prefer a light IDE theme.
This about covers my home entire home office space. If I missed anything or if you want to ask me about anything sound off below in the comments.