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My Productivity Desk Setup - Ali Abdaal - Arshian
Arshian
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8/22/2024
My Productivity Desk Setup - Ali Abdaal - Arshian
dailymotion.com/arshian
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Category
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Learning
Transcript
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00:00
Hey guys, welcome back to the channel.
00:11
If you're new here, my name is Ali.
00:12
I'm a junior doctor working in Cambridge.
00:14
And today we're gonna be talking about
00:15
this whole desk setup situation here
00:17
that I'm gonna be using for YouTubing,
00:19
studying, just general productivity stuff.
00:21
So I'm gonna be talking about how I've put it all together,
00:23
the rationale behind choosing the various things,
00:25
and I'll link in the description below
00:26
to all of the various products along with timestamps.
00:29
So if you are just interested in like the tree
00:31
or the lamp or whatever,
00:32
then you can just kind of skip ahead in the description.
00:34
You don't have to watch the whole video,
00:35
but it would be really nice if you did.
00:36
So let's just jump into it and we'll start with the desk.
00:39
Now the desk is the IKEA Elvarly wooden countertop
00:42
that is propped up on two random metal legs from IKEA.
00:46
But on the other side, we've got the Alex drawer unit.
00:48
The Elvarly countertop means that you can pretty much
00:50
get a desk as long as you want.
00:52
They've got these in different sizes.
00:53
You can cut them down to size.
00:54
Having the Alex drawer unit on one side or on both sides,
00:56
like some people have,
00:57
means you've got loads and loads of space
00:58
and it also looks really nice.
01:00
It looks like you've got this like custom built desk.
01:02
So that was the desk.
01:03
Let's now talk about the chair.
01:04
And this is a random ergonomic office chair
01:06
that belongs to my housemate.
01:07
I really wanted to get the Herman Miller Embody
01:09
because it looks absolutely sick.
01:10
But when I mentioned the price tag to my mum,
01:12
she completely vetoed the idea
01:14
of me spending a thousand pounds on a chair,
01:15
even though I argued that it was my own money
01:18
and that it was good for the back
01:19
and all of this sort of stuff,
01:20
but she just was not having it at all.
01:22
All right, now let's talk about the tech.
01:23
And the laptop that's powering this whole setup
01:25
is the new 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro with a touch bar.
01:29
It's got the i9 processor, the 32 gigs of RAM,
01:30
and I went for the one terabyte hard drive upgrade.
01:32
That MacBook is connected
01:33
via the Satechi USB aluminium hub thing
01:36
to this LG 34-inch ultrawide monitor.
01:39
This is a pretty budget ultrawide monitor as far as they go.
01:42
I think it was in the region of about 300 pounds.
01:44
They can go up to over a thousand pounds,
01:46
especially if you want a 4K display or a 5K display
01:48
or a 38-inch ultrawide.
01:49
I went for this one.
01:50
I've been using it for the last almost three years now,
01:52
and I've not actually noticed anything wrong with it.
01:54
And my theory about upgrading stuff
01:55
is that it's only really worth upgrading something
01:58
if what you currently have feels like it sucks
02:00
or you feel a genuine pain when you use it.
02:03
And there's a lot of research that shows that actually,
02:05
if you wanna increase your happiness by spending money,
02:06
then the only way to do that really
02:08
is by removing salient negatives
02:10
rather than by adding additional positives.
02:12
And you'll notice that little pipe thing
02:16
is covering up the power cable and the HDMI cable.
02:19
And I think it looks quite cool.
02:21
You can't really see it from a distance,
02:22
and if you do, it sort of looks like
02:23
it's kind of the monitor is floating in midair.
02:25
Right, let's talk about peripherals now.
02:27
And for my trackpad, I'm using the Apple Magic Trackpad.
02:30
And on the other side, I've got the Logitech MX Master.
02:32
This is the standard tech YouTuber mouse.
02:34
And I actually like combining the mouse with the trackpad.
02:36
I use the trackpad for like scrolly things
02:38
because it's got really nice smooth scrolling on it.
02:40
But also, if I'm editing in Final Cut,
02:41
I use the trackpad to swipe through the timeline.
02:44
So I feel kind of cool.
02:45
Like I've got my little command center
02:46
leaning back on my chair.
02:47
I've got the mouse in one hand, the trackpad in the other,
02:49
and it just feels like a nice experience to edit videos.
02:52
And for the keyboard,
02:53
I'm using the original Apple wireless
02:55
Bluetooth keyboard thing,
02:57
which I bought in like 2009 from a friend of mine.
03:00
And I've literally been using it these last nine years.
03:02
I have not looked back.
03:03
It's absolutely incredible.
03:04
On the desk, I also like to have
03:05
my old 2015 Retina MacBook Pro.
03:07
This thing is still great.
03:09
I take it to work these days
03:10
because I'm not overly worried
03:11
if something bad happens to it.
03:12
But it still works absolutely amazingly
03:14
for pretty much anything I want to do on a computer
03:16
other than hardcore video editing.
03:18
That sounds weird.
03:19
The speakers I'm using at the moment
03:20
and have been for the last three years
03:21
are these basic Logitech 25 pound ones
03:23
that I got off Amazon.
03:24
You've got a left, you've got a right,
03:25
and you've got the subwoofer underneath.
03:27
I kind of do want to upgrade
03:28
to like a decent 300 pound set of speakers.
03:31
Lots of other tech YouTubers use the Adam Arter speakers
03:34
or like some Audio Technica ones.
03:35
Those look really cool
03:36
and like the glossy white looks really nice.
03:38
But again, I see no reason to upgrade these.
03:40
I'm not an audiophile when it comes to my speakers
03:42
and these are cheap and work very well
03:44
and have never let me down.
03:45
Right, so in terms of lamps,
03:46
I've got two at the moment.
03:48
One of them on that side is the classic angle poise lamp.
03:50
And then on this side,
03:51
we've got this new Tomans Scandinavian-y sort of design
03:55
Pixar lamp looking thing that Jonathan Morrison,
03:57
who's an incredible tech YouTuber,
03:59
likes to use in his videos.
04:01
At the moment, I'm not 100% sure about the double lamp,
04:03
but I do quite like the warm glow
04:05
that it gives to the whole room,
04:06
especially if I'm editing at night.
04:07
It just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
04:10
I've also got these two Japanese cup things,
04:12
which I bought from Japan
04:13
when I went there about six years ago now.
04:15
I absolutely love these.
04:16
I think it adds like a nice splash of personality to a desk.
04:19
Underneath the desk,
04:19
I've got one of those headphone stand things
04:21
that you just stick to the underside of the desk.
04:23
And on one side of those,
04:24
I've got my Audio-Technica M50Xs,
04:26
which I use for audio editing when I'm doing music stuff.
04:29
And on the other side,
04:29
I put my stethoscope and like NHS lanyard
04:32
and like Bluetooth headphones that I take to work.
04:34
Let's now talk about the plants.
04:35
So I've got this fake IKEA potted plant.
04:38
Again, this is like,
04:39
it's pretty much required purchasing
04:40
for anyone who wants to be a tech YouTuber.
04:42
Literally everyone has these.
04:43
This is great.
04:44
I just really like the splash of green it adds to the desk.
04:46
And recently, I decided to add a tree to the desk setup.
04:50
This is the Pachira tree,
04:51
which is like an indoor tree
04:52
that's apparently quite easy to look after.
04:54
So if you're interested in adding a little bit of flair
04:56
to your desk setup or to your house in general,
04:58
you might want to consider some indoor plants.
05:00
I think this has become almost the centrepiece
05:02
of the whole room because it's just so nice.
05:04
Like sitting on the sofa, having a cup of coffee,
05:07
listening to a fantasy audio book on Audible, link below,
05:09
and just kind of seeing a tree in front of you.
05:11
There's just nothing that beats that experience.
05:12
And finally, I always like to have a deck of cards
05:15
somewhere on my desk.
05:16
So I've been practising close-up magic now
05:18
for about eight years.
05:19
Wow, that's a long time.
05:20
So if I'm ever kind of doing something
05:21
that doesn't require the use of my hands,
05:23
I like to just kind of grab the deck
05:24
and do some moves with it.
05:26
Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention,
05:27
in terms of cable management, again from Ikea,
05:29
I've got one of those cable rack things
05:30
that you just drill into the underside of the desk
05:33
and that stores all the cables.
05:34
And then for the most part, wherever you are in the room,
05:37
you can't really see any cables.
05:38
I still think there's room for improvement,
05:40
but you know, this does the job for now.
05:42
All right, thank you for watching.
05:43
That is everything on my desk.
05:44
I hope you found this video interesting.
05:45
Thank you very much for watching.
05:45
If you liked the video, please give it a thumbs up.
05:47
If you haven't subscribed to the channel,
05:48
please consider doing so.
05:49
I've now started working as a doctor,
05:51
so I make blogs about what life as a doctor is like,
05:53
but I'm also kind of making a few tech videos
05:56
about kind of apps that I use productivity-wise
05:58
and what I've got on my iPad, all of that sort of stuff.
06:00
I'll put some more links in the description below.
06:02
So yeah, thanks for watching
06:03
and I'll see you in the next video.
06:04
Goodbye.
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