Silver Clipboard

On My Desk

After linking to On My Desk earlier in the week, I thought I’d add my own workspace to the collection.

The focus of the desk is my MacBook. This sits atop a laptop stand which raises the screen to almost eye level, making it more comfortable to use. The strange-looking joystick is a 3M Ergonomic Mouse. I credit that piece of machinery with saving my hand from RSI.

The lava lamp is perfect for ambient lighting while reading in the bed next to the desk. The lamp’s soft light is also useful for when I get up early in the morning so that I’m less likely to disturb my new wife. The instructions told me not to shake the lava lamp, but I failed to resist temptation. It hasn’t been the same since.

A small sushi tray serves as a candle holder. The little flames both keep the room smelling nice, and fire gazing is a useful way to zone out for a few moments without getting more permanently distracted.

All mail and other paper messages get dumped into the metal inbox to be dealt with once a week. Its metalness makes it feel much more serious and so keeps me from using it as a poor filing cabinet.

The stack of index cards and the holder are for Seinfeld-style chains. I also take a blank card to the gym to record my exercise times.

The metal clipboard is the command center from which I make decisions about what I need to do. Few things are as satisfying as a well-made clipboard. My love for metal organizational tools is strong.

Sturdy hole punch. Curse England and its two-hole paper culture! If you’re an American living in the UK, you know what I’m talking about.

On the right I use the top of a shoebox as a landing strip to dump the stuff in my pockets into when I get home. It makes preparing in the morning easier as well. This way I don’t have to hunt for my wallet, keys, ipod, oyster card and notebook all over the house. A few other miscellaneous desk items live in here as well, since there really isn’t any other place to store them that isn’t inconvenient.

Below the desk are multiple external hard drives. If you are a paranoid data freak like myself, you can never have enough backups. The scanner/printer is cheap but gets the job done.

I made the mistake of buying a cheap paper shredder before, which was small and only handled one sheet. Bad idea. Buy a quality one so that shredding documents is as easy as throwing them out.

My poor substitute for a filing cabinet is also under the desk. The arch leaver file holds my financial records and the white accordion file is an A-Z alphabetical general reference. I long for a proper filing cabinet but, alas, there isn’t space in my small London flat.