iOS/macOS developer and soon to be freelancer/entrepreneur Red Davis from Bath, UK joins us for a Desk Hunt interview to talk about his custom made home office desk.
Let’s take a look.
Can you tell me something about your desk setup?
For ages I have wanted a dedicated office in my apartment but have never had the space. I moved into this apartment earlier this year and it had a spare room!
I really wanted to fit 2 desks in the room; one for me and one for my partner. After spending what felt like weeks looking for the perfect desk I decided to have a Google for local furniture makers.
I came across Bath Bespoke and asked them if they would build a desk for me (they ended up building 2 bookshelves too!). I’m really happy with the result!
Is there anything you would like to improve on this setup?
The room doesn’t get a huge amount of natural light so I would like to replace the lightbulbs with natural lightbulbs.
I find myself more and more tempted by Bose QuietComfort wireless headphones and let’s not forget a 4k iMac!
Do you switch workspaces during your day? If yes, what’s the reason behind it?
Not really, I might go to a coffee shop every now and then but I find that I do my best work at my home office.
Can you tell us something about the items on your desk?
In the photos you can see some standard desk drawers from Ikea. Being an iOS developer I have quite a few testing devices. Normally these are just kept in my laptop bag but it can be pretty annoying when you want to test something but find that the device is out of power and you’re left twiddling your thumbs while you wait for it to charge. So I modified the top drawer and turned it into a charging drawer 🎉. Here’s a short video I made.
The last little modification I made was to help control the humidity in the room. I wrote a detailed post describing what I did here but the TLDR of it is that I wrote some code to turn the Dehumidifier on when the Nest reports that the Humidity has risen above 60 and then turn it off once below 60. Just one less thing to think/worry about!
What are you doing to stay focused?
I like to keep a strict daily regime, I find it really helps me plan my day and has the added benefit of keeping a strong boundary between life and work time.
I’m more productive early in the morning so I like to plan what I’m working on tomorrow at the end of the day, this means that I can get going as soon as I sit at my desk.
While working all I need is music and a cup of tea! I have two Spotify playlists of music I like to listen to while working.
Is there something on your desk which helps you stay focused? What is it?
Nothing specific on my desk but keeping well hydrated, exercising, eating well and getting enough sleep are a winning combination for staying focused.
Where do you see yourself and your desk in the next 5 years?
I’m going freelance in January 2017 with the hope to start a small agency with some friends later that year. So hopefully that is all going well!
As for my desk, I’m not too sure…
