Thoughts On Evolving Your Workspace

My desk at home has gone through several iterations as my needs changed, and I looked back on a picture of how it looked on my first day of work and it amazed me at how different the setup looked. Okay sure, the main pieces are almost always going to be in similar places. My keyboard, my mouse, my monitor: they’re all in pretty much the same place, but almost everything else has changed or shifted position.

At this point, you’re probably looking at me sideways thinking “okay, why does the position of your pens warrant a blog post, Dan?” That’s exactly the point! These are seemingly inconsequential little efficiencies that add up over time, and sometimes you don’t even think about them until you notice how they used to be. Speaking about those pens for example, they used to be fairly haphazard with a few pens in several places all across the desk before there wasn’t an obvious place for them. It took properly managing the cables on my desk, turning my computer’s docking station sideways (a box where all of the computer’s cables connect to), and reorganizing the paper on my desk before I found a place where all my pens would sit. Even then, my desk still underwent a few other iterations before it landed on my current one.

Okay, so why does this matter? As I mentioned, efficiencies, even small ones, add up over time. With each new setup, I find that my workflow becomes faster and more efficient, even if it’s a little at a time. Sometimes a little change can add up to a big efficiency as well, just because one decides to experiment.

Fairly recently, I started going back into the office once a week and that involves packing up my laptop and the power cable to take into my on-site workstation. In my old setup, I had my power cable going behind my desk to get to the plug, which involved crawling under it and feeding the cable between the wall and the desk. While it was efficient and out of the way, it was also quite the pain to have to do that twice a week (once to leave, once on return). So, I ended up putting the power cable around the side of the desk instead, so there was less crawling and fiddling required. While much easier to take in and out, I found myself kicking it fairly regularly and was much more irritated by it. Eventually, I happened to notice that the cable for my docking station also happened to provide power, so it turned out that no power cable was required after all!

I only made this discovery because I decided to experiment and see what worked and what didn’t. I know some people aren’t comfortable with messing with an electronic setup that works, but there are plenty of things you can do to reorganize your workspace that don’t involve computers.

What workspace efficiencies have you found that worked for you? Have you found new and better ways to accomplish your tasks?