Desk stuff

At the time I write this, I keep a nice home office which I currently cannot use because I am camping out away from home as part of my bubble's pandemic protocol. I just finished setting up a smaller but still fairly elaborate desk at the place where I will be for the next month or two (or, heaven forbid, longer) and snapped a picture of it to share with Facebook friends. Folks were so interested that I have been writing up what all my Desk Stuff is, so I thought it would be fun to transcribe that here. At the time I post this it is still a work in progress.

1

I suffer the constant temptation to clutter already-cluttered desk with items which are strictly decorative. In this reduced arragnement, I have sweated it down to two items.

I have never met a Hindu programmer who did not keep a representation of Ganesh at their desk. I am not qualified to give puja, but I find that he is patient with western pagans with modest offerings, so I give him a little “jai Ganesh!” or a bit of candy from time to time, and credit him with the smooth running of my computer. If things get really dire fixing something, I light the candle.

The Dymaxion icosahedron globe is a relatively new acquisition. I am a bit of a Buckminster Fuller enthusiast and the map is my favorite of his designs. I’m starting to think I should have gone for the blue/orange version, thoough, because when unfolded the dark blue oceans of the satellite image version I have are hard to distinguish from the magnets which hold the globe together.

2

The important thing at the end of the desk is an old iPhone, now repurposed just to run the BeFocused app, which is a smart pomodoro timer. I do not really practice the Pomodoro Technique rigorously — though I am working on it — but it does help keep me self-aware about my time and working rhythms. Keeping that in reach and visible and able to make its own independent sounds really helps.

A little organizer holds my favorite fancy bullet journal marking supplies: colored washi tape, sticky tabs, color coding dots, a correction ribbon, and a Postit glue stick. I have been stepping up my BuJo game this year. I do not keep an elaborate journal as many folks do — the simplicity is part of what makes it work for me — part of what makes the BuJo work for me is how it engages my attention through getting to fuss with paper products.

Then I have a little wooden playing card holder. My stationary obsessions extend to a love for index cards, so it is nice to be able to set up a tiny kanban board with them at my desk.

3

On the left side of the desk, I have my iPad on a stand, a little storage box with some alternate cables and other supplies, and a new acquisition: the big Contour ShuttlePro.

The Shuttle is programmable keypad with a jogwheel, primarily designed for audio and video editing. The driver software is smart enough to recognize which application is selected and to deliver shortcuts appropriate to it to the device, so I can work with one hand on the trackpad and one on the Shuttle. I'm just getting set up with it because for many years I relied on a different (and better) solution the Razer Nostromo, a gamers' programmable left-hand keypad with the same application awareness. Alas, they ended Mac support for the Nostromo and its successors a while back, and the new Mac OS Big Sur killed the controller software, so I had to change platforms.

4

The inexpensive flat-pack desk I got has open side shelves, so I have a few desktop organizers tucked onto the shelves on the left. I have spare notebooks, extra pens, index cards, sticky notes, a pair of scissors, index cards, stamps, and the like here.

5

My MacBook Pro recently bricked itself and my decade-old iMac was wheezy, so when Apple announced the new Apple silicon Mac Mini, I upgraded to it ... and thus needed to get a new monitor. Dell has a retina-resolution monitor which is Good Enough and a big step up from the monitor I used to have, and it has one of those Dell stands which makes it easy to switch to portrait format. If I am flush later this year, as I hope, I will spring for an awesome main display and rotate this one to use as a tall adjunct display dedicated to reading, writing, and note-taking. It also acts as a USB hub, which helps with the Mini's port limitations.

This also meant I needed to get a USB webcam, especially in this work-from-home quarantine year, and to my pleasant surprise I could find a camera better than what I can reliably transmit over the internet was inexpensive.

6

Together with the webcam, upgrading my machine and doing more remote meetings, I also recently needed to break down and get a proper USB mic rather than rely on my headphone mic, so I got a mic that was not too expensive, well-reviewed ... and old-timey-looking. Interlocutors tell me that I do not quite sound Broadcast Awesome, but much better than before.

On the monitor stand I also keep my (now collectors' item) Silicon Valley Tarot deck (which is witty and surprisingly useful for work), eyeglasses, and a fidget cube.

8

That wacky Keyboardio keyboard arouses the most curiousity, so I have a whole separate post about it.

10

So the big thing here is a vertical file organizer with a mini-whiteboard which I got dirt cheap from of of my favorite catalogues, American Science & Surplus. It is a glamourless plastic thing, unlike the beautiful glass desk WB from Quartet which I lust after but do not really have a proper use for. The organizer has a slightly depressed tray on top for a couple of WB markers, which is a nice touch, keeping those big WB markers away from my other pens. But the cool part — the thing which makes it an essential part of my arsenal — is how in back there are four thick slots for folders, ascending a bit in back stadium-style. These are my Hot Files for stuff I am working on.

I use a set of durable plastic folders with translucent bodies so I can tell what is inside. I have marked each folder with a letter for indexing elsewhere if I need it, though I am not getting so much mileage out of that as I expected. But it is really useful to me that the tabs of the folders are colored, so I color code yellow/orange/red for ascending urgency of things I need to do, plus green for On My Desk But Currently Cool, and blue for Pending Action From Elsewhere. I keep the folder supply upside-down in the back slot, with matching colored sticky dots on each one so it is easy to pull a new folder of the appropriate color for a new project. The limited space in the slots keeps me from holding too much stuff on my desk.

To the left of the organizer thing I have chargers for my watch and phone, wired phone headphones for when I need them, a book of videoconference signs which I made, and three key desk tools: a good retractable pen, a good eraser, and a cheap little desk knife which comes in very handy.