Wait. wut? Yep that’s right..
As much as that line from Cage the Elephant’s song is a little twisted for convenience, I am purely joking.
See, we tech head are like meth heads when it comes to clean, minimalist looking desk setups. We all want it. but the excitement lasts only for a little while until you get busy.
And if you’re a very busy person who actually uses your table for like actual stuff, then you’re desk shouldn’t be a clean one. The more the desk is used the more cluttered it will be and the more that someone else can see that its being used – classic school text book stuff.
But seriously though we all like a clean setup. There are websites like www.minimaldesksetups.com that are dedicated to guides and advice on how to go about setting up your own. For motivation here’s just one setup that I liked from that site.
As a habit I had a Instagram saved folder for literally hundreds of these. And well, when the Pandemic struck first in 2020 and all of us were grounded, I decided to use what I had around and redo my own setup.
This was literally an ashes to glory for me because I finally was able to move my now office setup into a separate room instead of it being in my bedroom.
And to be honest, I think there is some sense in that separation, because the juggling battle between sleep, priorities, dedication and creating became a little easier to handle – not to mention the bedroom became more cooler.
After this so called much needed, drastic, yet fulfilling transformation, I did manage at times to keep to it being clean and also managed to change it around whenever I could.
There were obviously days where the desk was a little messy. Also fun fact i couldn’t mention – this was when I was still in university. – back in 2020-2021. Back then life was being stuck at home and assignments. It was messy and manageable.
Fast-forward to now – the last day for the month of June 2022. This is what it looks like. Needless to say I’m genuinely ashamed of turning on the overhead light. The dim light helps to hide the actual messes.
I had started using the laptop for editing and had dragged out all the cables to connect the monitors, speakers and the rest of the peripherals to it. Never realized how much of a crazy mess this was until my good friend Avishka @av1__s saw a picture of it and flipped out. I probably realized then that it was actually messy.
Sure that desk has definitely more stuff on it that before – the dual monitors was a huge step up. and then came the Echo and the Screen bar and the MX Master mouse and so on.
But honestly, the truth is that this desk is literally what my head looked like in what I could just say was the most busiest of months I’ve had in years while working. What that mess really hides was the 40hr continuous work stint, the 20 – 30 drink cans I probably downed each week, and the stress that comes with the almost unsurpassable deadlines.
Is it worth it ? Yes of course! Doing what you love never comes without a price tag. That journey and process is what makes it worth it.
The bottom line, because I need to end this long post (honestly where did I start and how did it end..) is that –
A desk is a representation of your mind and what goes in it. And if it changes seasonally, well, that’s okay. Life was never meant to be straight.
What matters is that you eventually work towards slowing yourself down so that you can dust everything off and make sure that everything is spick and span again, before the next hurricane of a rollercoaster arrives.
And hey, even I’m preparing for that too. Although I will admit that these guys have been eating dust for a few weeks and months, waiting to be used.
I think July is going to be a good month for some new fresh starts. After all it was also the month I was born in – so gotta do something to make it a bit meaningful noh..
Let’s see. Hopefully I can share the new setup on a later blog post.
Also hey, just realized I made blog post #2!
Now that too, is something to be happy about at the end of the day,
even though its just 2:45am :’)
