Environmental Engineering

I spend so much time at my desk, using my computer - be it for work, for fun, to get the bits of onerous life administration that we all need to do complete, this is like a second bedroom to me.

A long time ago, I didn't care about cable management, general organisation on my desk, or the general simplicity of a set up, until I realised that by being more organised, I could save significantly more time because I wouldn't endlessly be searching for things.

Be it using something like Brave browser, or owning socks that are all the same (so I don't waste time pairing them off post-laundry) - time saving is a massive part of the environmental engineering I recently completed. It took about a day, but countless man-hours of thought and distraction thinking (but what if...)

So yesterday, on my day off, I went to the hardware store and set to exiting my monitor arm solution and introducing a classic, that sadly isn't manufactured widely anymore - a desk hutch.

See here the end result - two 27" monitors, two laptops (one closed, its a work laptop) - and a desktop machine, all on a desk that measures 1.5 metres long by 70 centimetres deep.

I made the thing out of two planks of engineered Acacia timber, and a pine board length. There's a few brackets and screws. Here's some images of my progress as I put the thing together:

I'm not a handy man by trade, but I escaped this DIY work with each and every finger intact.

Observe in the background my slowly perishing chili plants.

I needed to sand down the two leg bits as I didn't cut them to exactly even lengths using the circular saw (skill saw for the American readers out there).

I had to do that in the shed instead of under my pergola where it was relatively nice and sunny.

Here is the final result, and what it looked like before being placed inside.

I could potentially stain it a darker colour to match my existing table top surface, but that's something that I thought of... after installing it and cable managing my monitors, laptops, and desktop machine.

The ergonomics are now also far superior, as I made some adjustments to my chair, removing its arm rests, which enable me to more sit closer to the desk.

Here's a before and after view:

Yes, in that before view, if you closely observe the monitor arm, you'll notice its sitting haphazardly atop some wooden blocks - which I drilled into the desk.

Creating the perfect workstation is a life-long project. I think this is why so many men spend so long, and so many hours working in their sheds to achieve a small victory against entropy.

For me, this is my victory:

What does your workstation look like?