working

Until March 2020, I had never done a significant amount of home working in my current job role. But then the pandemic and lockdown happened, and I started a period of exclusive home working until September 2020. Since then, I’ve been a hybrid worker; typically I am in the office 2-3 days each week, but I still spend a significant amount of my working time at home.

First lockdown

During the first lockdown, I worked on our dining table. Though I had a desk, it was somewhat buried under piles of stuff and was set up for my Mac, even though I barely used it. Plus, I was at home with our then four-year-old, who I also had to parent alongside full-time work and part-time study. Let’s just say that this marked the point when I started getting grey hairs.

In my office, I always had two screens and so I replicated this as best as I could at home – a laptop, with an external screen plugged in. This screen was my LG Flatron W2353V, which I was sent to review back in 2009. We still have it, 15 years later; it’s no longer my principal screen, but our (now) eight-year-old uses it with their Raspberry Pi 400. With this, I had a cheap USB mouse and my Mac Mini’s keyboard. Everything would be cleared away at the end of each working day, so that we could have dinner.

Moving upstairs

September 2020 rolled around, and our then four-year-old started school, so no more need for supervision whilst working. I therefore moved to working upstairs, in our spare room. As it was starting to become clear that I would be working at home at least part of the week for the foreseeable future, I started investing in things that would make my home working environment better. This included a folding laptop stand (sponsored link), a new keyboard (sponsored link), a new Lenovo LED screen, and a succession of wireless mice, culminating in this Arteck mouse that I reviewed earlier this year. The laptop stand was probably the biggest game changer, as it allowed my screens to be at a similar height.

Not being on the dining table meant that I could keep everything out when not working, rather than having to unpack my workspace every morning and put it all away again each evening.

Later on, we splashed out on the single most expensive item – a new Markus office chair from Ikea. Over time, I also added a ring light, a better microphone (sponsored link), and a better webcam than the one built into the laptop, seeing as how many of our meetings are still online.

Back downstairs again

Although my workspace in our spare room was adequate, technically this was Christine’s craft and sowing space. Meanwhile, my desk downstairs in the dining room was still sat there under a pile of junk. So, I finally got around to clearing it out, and moved back downstairs to a new permanent home workspace. This gave me more space to work and in a room that was significant cooler over the summer. This is the workspace that is in the photo at the top of this blog post.

The most recent additions came from Ikea. I added a black Lånespelare mug holder, a white Skådis peg board to hide wires, and a Stubberget monitor bracket. The bracket clips on to the back of my desk, and attaches to the screen using a four screw VESA mount. That way, it’s easier to adjust the height (previously it sat on a rather stout book about pharmaceuticals), but also frees up more desk space and keeps the cables tidy. And whilst we don’t have a very young child any-more, having the screen fixed to the desk is much safer than a free-standing screen that could fall on them if pulled. We’ve had our various TVs fixed to the wall for the same reason.

I’m still working flexibly and so it’s likely that I’ll still need a good home working environment for some time to come. That might include an additional screen in future, although my current laptop only supports one additional screen and not two. I’m also looking at further ways to tidy up the cables.