Many of you have seen my workshop and fab lab spaces in previous videos. Those are where I do most of the DIY IT projects for ZDNet. At some point, I’ll show you a more in-depth tour of each. I also work by our living room TV. I have a monitor and a computer mounted to a side table. I put this in when our puppy was a baby and wanted company all the time. I’ve kept it in because it’s a great place to do my morning reading and email. Plus, having the little pup sitting on my lap while working is a great joy – although he’s definitely not happy with that plastic keyboard thing I use when I should be petting him.
We moved into this house about two years ago, so a lot of this is a work-in-progress. That said, my workspaces are always works in progress, whether I’ve lived in them for just a year or so, or five or six years. I’m always improving and optimizing my environment to gain productivity advantages.
Also: See more of what I use in my office: Gear for teachers who want to up their online game The office I’m showing you in the attached video is a wonderful space. Of all the home office spaces I have had, I think this is my favorite. It’s nice. It’s comfortable. It’s big enough to do a variety of things. I’m able to integrate both the studio and my desktop with one pretty powerful computer. I love it. And I hope that as you folks build your home offices, you’re able to do the same. 
One thing I hear from a lot of folks newly working from home is that they don’t have anything like the spaces us long-term work-from-homers have set up. It’s true. But none of this happens overnight. I’m going to point you to a video I did just before I moved here. That showed how I worked out of a kitchen in a rental house while we were trying to find the new house that we’re moving into. 
Also: My home office/YouTube studio: Making it work temporarily in a kitchen I want you to see that because it’s also possible to work from almost any location if you put some intention into it, think it through, and optimize it based on what you’ve got. I’ve worked out of the car out of hotel rooms during hurricane evacuations. I’ve worked out of a little nine by nine-foot square room. I’ve worked out of this wonderful space. I even worked out of our living room, which was great until we got the puppy and then it became unmanageable.
Also: An overview of each of my home offices The point is that I’ve worked from home for about 20 years in a wide variety of settings and I got the job done. Each time, it’s had a different personality. Each space was optimized differently. Setting each up took a bit of work, but as I showed you, you can do some of these things without a lot of expense. In the accompanying video, I showed you the credenza that I put together that was half of an $8 piece of wood and some file boxes. 
You can be creative and create a really effective home office environment even if you haven’t been doing it for 20 years and constantly looking at ways to make it better. If you’re starting out now, just focus on what you need. Focus on giving yourself a quiet space where you can concentrate. And then don’t be afraid to think outside the box and create a space that works.

Final thoughts

Remember, if you’re working from home, this is your work. It’s not a recreational activity. This is how you make a living. So it is worth it to put some time, energy, and sometimes investment into the place that you use to make a living and help support your family. And with that, go out there and build an awesome home office.
The slight curve makes it. It took about a week to get used to at first, but it makes the screen easier to read and reduces eye strain. I still use additional monitors, but they’re good for secondary information and work. I can use this main curved screen and see what I need without straining my neck. My ultrawide monitor was probably the most useful and valuable tech purchase I’ve made in the past few years. Also: Yes, I bought a 2018 Mac Mini (and here’s how I spec’d it out) I saved some bucks by doing my own RAM upgrade, which this machine grudgingly allows. Does anyone want to take bets on whether the Apple Silicon version will allow you to add your own RAM? Want to know more? Read my article: Do you really need an eGPU with a 2018 Mac Mini? The Sapphire Radeon Pulse is the Vega 56 card that was recommended by Apple, and I haven’t had any compatibility issues. I did consider the Vega 64 card, but it wouldn’t fit in the OWC enclosure I had. There was no great loss: I’m not gaming, and for the video editing and 3D modeling I’m doing, the Vega 56 is plenty speedy. The Sapphire Radeon Pulse RX Vega 56 card I bought almost two years ago isn’t available, but this one is. My review: First look: Drobo 8D Thunderbolt 3 direct-attached RAID array Here’s how I use it: I do my live video editing on the internal flash of my Mac mini. As soon as a video is complete, I move it over to the Drobo. I also use the Drobo to store all my media assets. This allows me to go back to previous videos to cull clips and compound tracks, yet still have the speed I need for multi-cam 4K production. I backup the Drobo via Time Machine and then to the cloud. At $140, it’s not cheap. And it took me a few months to get used to it. So, if you’re not an active 3D modeler, I don’t recommend it. But if you do a lot of your own designs, this can be both a time saver and a way to free up your creativity. I like to edit with my timelines zoomed in, and that makes them very long to navigate. While I’ve used the trackpad and the mouse to navigate, what I like about the ShuttleXpress (and the reason I bought it) is I can just spin the wheel, hold it, and my timeline will arrive where I need it. It’s one physical action and I can dial in exactly what I need. If you don’t do a lot of editing, or you don’t look at it and immediately go “aha,” this might not be for you. But if you’re a video editor, this is a very helpful little bit. It’s definitely saved me time. My big uses for the one at my desk are for video editing and window management when I’m doing a big research project. I use the one at my studio desk to manage the settings needed for recording video. This one is no exception. It’s a nice 32-inch TV, which I bought for my office. At all of $149, it was a no-brainer decision. It’s got multiple inputs, so I can use the Roku from my chair or desk to watch streaming video, or I can switch it to HDMI 1 and use it as another screen on my Mac mini. But here, the standout feature is the groove in the back. It’s meant to hold up an iPad or smartphone, and I do use it for that. I also use it to hold my trackpad at the perfect position so I can use it without removing my hands from the keyboard. I’ve been using it ever since. Sure, I’d probably prefer a bigger, better mouse. But it works and so I’m using it. Sometimes, it’s nice to just stick with what works. These days, it’s hard to find a more resounding recommendation than “it just works,” especially if “just works” has been for years now. If you run a business, are dealing with #adulting, or have any other responsibilities, you’re going to have to deal with forms and paperwork. Often, you’re going to have to do so quickly. It’s not a common thing, but when it happens, it’s almost always urgent. Being able to scan in a document at those times can be mission critical. That’s why this is a smart addition to my desk. We have two Echo Shows that might wife requested, two full-size Echos, and the rest are little Dots. We’ve long accepted that we have devices recording small bits after wake words, but the fact is, we don’t discuss anything all that revolutionary, so it doesn’t matter to us. You need to make your own decisions. Black Magic Design, the storied video gear company behind the ATEM line, also just announced two cool new products: The $885 ATEM Mini Pro ISO with built-in individual multi-stream recording capabilities; and the ATEM Streaming Bridge (which is more of a tool for pro broadcasters) that converts the ATEM stream back into professional video formats. Both will be available in August. I actually own two of these Caddie Buddy teleprompters. One is in the workshop and one is in my upstairs studio. While they’re reasonably inexpensive, they’re also pretty solid and definitely do the job. I’ve been using the Blue Yeti for years and it produces good quality sound reliably. It comes with a number of different pickup patterns, which gives you a bit of versatility in how you use it. The included stand stood me well for years, but I recently upgraded to a boom arm, which I showed you in the video. Buying hint: These are in and out of short supply due to the pandemic. If they’re out of stock in one color, look for another color. Also, don’t let the price gougers get you: This should run about $130 or so, new. Do you have an awesome home office? Are you just building one for the first time? Tell us about it in the comments below.
You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to follow me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz, on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.