A few weeks ago I did a post and shared some pictures our members have sent in of their offices.

Really good stuff with list a quarterly goals and objectives, core values, process maps, and goal tracking graphs.

If you missed it, that post is here.

Anyway, there was reply to that post with someone asking me to share some pictures of my office.

So I thought, “OK, you’ve shown me yours… so why not show you mine?”

I left town Wednesday and didn’t get a chance to take photos before heading out the door.

But I thought I would at least get things started by sharing a list of my personal favorite items that make up my office, why I love them so, and how they help me work.

I think that’s the most important thing about setting up your office.

Find what you like, what helps you stay organized, focused, and work more efficiently… and have fun and be comfortable while you’re doing it.

Ok so here’s a list to get things started:

1. IKEA office furniture (Galant and Effektiv Systems)

A great office starts with great furniture. But I’m not a fan of blowing a ton of money on some gaudy looking desk made for an attorney. I like my office to be simple, clean, and functional. IKEA’s professional office furniture is, I think, perfect.

I’ve got a Galant corner desk, with a couple add on pieces to extend it on both sides.

As well as a small rectangle desk that sits up against the wall behind me… kinda like a credenza.

Then I’ve got a couple bookcases made up of their Effektiv system which you can configure however you like and add on to or modify over time. My personal set up is hard grey plastic bottom, 5 add-on lows, and I’ve got the bottom 2 in each book case with file drawers and door fronts.

2. Herman Miller Aeron chair

The chair IS the most important piece of furniture. Because your interfacing with it all the time.

I used to not care about the chair I sat in, and blew through a few cheap ones that kinda broke down over time.

No more.

Last time my chair died (literally had screws falling out) I vowed to make a change. Eric  was actually down to visit for our monthly meeting and encouraged me to go for it, so I sprung for the best chair you can buy… the Herman Miller Aeron with the add on lumbar support. It’s about $900, but when you consider I probably spend more time in my chair then I ever will in my car… the investment is well worth it.

In fact, I loved this chair so much that a few weeks after getting it I ordered up another one for my home office too.

As a side note, most everything I’ve got in my work office I’ve also got a duplicate of in my home office. I like wherever I “plug into” to be the same and ready to rock with the set of tools I like to work with.

I invested a few bucks in completing this “duplication” of my office just over the holidays and man does it feel great.

I’m working at least 2-3 days a week from home now and everything is so squared away in my home office… with no interruptions … that I’ve been to bang out a ton of great work there lately.

3. MacBook Pro laptop-

For years I would buy the best Dell laptop you could buy in December, run it all out for 1 year, then replace it the following December.

In December 2008 I bought my last Dell, a Latitude (always invested a little more for Dell’s corporate grade stuff  because it’s tougher), and the thing ended up being $3,000 lemon.

Total junk.

I toughed it out for 8 months with this thing and finally ditched it after Dick and I got back from Australia.

I just couldn’t take it anymore.

I’ve heard nothing but great things about the Mac laptops, Consumer Reports rates them as the best laptop you can buy, and even my PC based programmer friends have Mac laptops.

So I spent a little time researching it, looking what impacts the transition would have, then dove it full force.

Worked out a couple kinks getting everything moved over, but now I can confidently say the MacBook Pro IS the best laptop… or computer overall… I’ve ever owned.

Totally rocks.

I’ve got the 13″ one loaded.

Only thing I wished I had done upfront was go for the 500 GB harddrive. I thought 320 GB would be fine, but now it’s full and I’ve got to transfer some things off it to an external drive to keep going.

But it’s great. Extremely portable. Great for travel. Very functional.

Several people have asked me lately if I’d recommend the Mac laptop to them, and I’ll tell you the same thing I’ve told each of them:

“Hell yeah!”

4. Matrox external graphics card-

As awesome a portable device as the MacBook Pro laptop is, when I’m in one of my offices I want to easily plug into some big monitors. And 2 of them.

About 2-3 years ago I was always just a regular 1 monitor guy. Have some friends that use 3 and 4 screens for trading, but I was just never interested in it.

Then I was on a trip to the Infusion offices in Phoenix and everyone there had 2 monitors.

I asked why and someone told me about productivity increases, how great it was, etc.

So I bought another monitor like the one I had, and have never looked back since.

Having 2 screens is more than just double the productivity… it’s at least triple.

I routinely have 2 documents open at once, and use it to work back and forth between them both efficiently.

In fact, I found it to be such an amazing increase in productivity, that I read some more studies about it (Microsoft has done a few about 2 monitors in the workplace) and we made the investment to purchase 2 screens for all staff.

It’s been a great investment.

Anwyway, back to the Matrox external graphic card. The MacBook Pro has some limitations on the internal graphics card that comes with it. But you can plug into this thing with the display port adaptor and a USB cable.. and then BAM… you’ve got 2 screens up and running (3 if you count the little laptop screen, but I don’t use that, just the big ones when I’m in the office).

Just a note.. if you pick one of these up.. go for the DP edition.

I got the DVI edition for the first one I purchased for the office. Then got the DP edition for my home office. It’s supports a higher definition resolution… which if you’ve got some great monitors really looks nice and you can squeeze more stuff on the display all at once… like viewing more of an entire webpage without having to scroll down the page.

5. Dell UltraSharp 24″ monitors (X2)-

These are the bad boys I’ve got at work. Have a couple different ones at home. It’s a good screen and resolution, but I don’t think it’s that special.

When Apple comes out with some new displays, I probably upgrade to those. But Apple’s displays aren’t cheap… and these work great, so I’m cool with it.

At home I’ve got 2 X 22″, at the office 2 X 24″. Either is probably fine, but the 24″ are a little bit nicer.

6. Logitech wireless Nuveo keyboard-

This is a great full size keyboard that is very smooth. And you plug it into a charging stand, then don’t have to recharge for at least a couple months.

But 10 min of charge will load you up for a day if you run down the battery.

Plus it’s got some great short cut keys.

One thing about the Macs is they have 2-3 different keys than a PC keyboard. Took me about a week or so to get used to it and the new shortcuts, but it’s actually pretty good.

Now when I get on one of the PC’s in the office (like the media station where we record all the webinars) it feels almost kinda foreign to me.

7. Apple Magic Mouse-

This is a sic mouse. Very smooth, function. And with just a finger swipe you can scroll up and down a page or document. And you can also configure a tap of the second finger to act like a right click function… which makes jumping around the web and other applications very fast and smooth.

8. Neat high speed scanner-

Over the past few months I’ve been moving to more and more of a paperless life.

This thing helps me keep up with it.

And now when I do a weekly review, I unload my paper inbox and scan down anything I want to keep… then shred the rest.

This product will scan recipts, business cards, and papers. And then OCR recognize numbers and data.

One of the things I like best about it is you can take out some plastic guides at the top and open it up to accept 50 pages at a time for scanning.

And it goes to work VERY fast… scanning both sides of all documents at the same time.

9. Bad Ass Paper Shredder-

Don’t know why I love this so, but I do.

Nothing like grinding up all the junk you don’t want to keep… and knowing it’s been shredded for security and privacy sake.

This big daddy one I’ve got even takes CD’s, old credit cards or ID’s, whatever you want.. it eats it.

Apparently I’m not the only one who loves shredding, because Dick and Vickie in our office have revealed they really enjoy it too.

So I’m not alone.

Who knows, maybe you’ll learn to have fun with this too.

10. Brother Label Maker-

For the paper files I do keep (which are mostly current projects that make sense to have out and easy to grab and dump notes and papers into) I use this to keep everything clearly marked and organized.

Funny to think that through our COMMANDER course, I’ve inspired a whole bunch of our clients to be label making fools with me.

Tony Maslan said to me on a call that his wife Chrissy commented to him how organized he had gotten after the course, and that when you “give a man a tool and it’s amazing what he can do.”

Tony shared that he’s labeled every box in his garage, and even sent us a video of him putting labels on each of the kids heads so he knew which one was which.

11. Wall Mounted Whiteboard-

Nothing like the good lo’ whiteboard.

I often draft out things in my head, priorities, projects, or things we’re discussing in a meeting here.

I was visiting the Attask offices in Salt Lake City on another trip and while talking with one of the founders he shared a story about how they invested a small fortune with a company who does research about how to set up offices, encourage creativity and development with software teams, and the like.

And after a ton of research, they came back and told them the best thing to do was to give everyone a whiteboard.

You just can’t beat em’.

Everyone should have one in their office.

12. Large Quarterly Dry Erase Calendar-

Right below my whiteboard, is a large oversized (I think the whiteboard and this are both 4 feet white) quarterly dry erase calendar.

I often map out our marketing calendar and promotions schedule here to keep me straight.

Especially when we’re got so many things moving simultaneously.

Good thing it’s dry erase, because it often gets a lot of adjustment with all the moving parts and timetables.

13. Some good art, posters-

I have a Getting Things Done poster I purchased from the David Allen Company on the wall in front of my desk.

This is a great book and philosophy I incorporated into my own life and systems several years ago.

The poster looks good and reminds me of it, so I purchased it and hung it up.

Also have a great Da Vinci print on another wall that Eric bought me framed for my 30th birthday 2 years ago.

14. A good oversized coffee mug-

I love coffee. Best cup you can get in the world as far as I’m concerned is Dunkin Donuts.

I don’t care what anyone says. Starbucks is shit.

Dunkin Donuts kicks ass.

I had been hitting a few cups a day for the last few years, but came off all caffeine a couple months ago.

Now my oversized cup holds caffeine free Green Tea and water which I drink throughout the day.

Eliminating caffeine from my diet has helped me not be so wired and sleep better at night.

I’m pretty high energy to begin with, so don’t need the extra jolt and over time caffeine can (and has) negatively affected my sleep and adrenals.

So as much as I love it… I’ve kicked it to to curb and taking it easy with the Green Tea for now.

15. Patriots Welcome Doormat-

Eric, Dick, and I are all Bill O’Reilly fans. Their is a reason the guy has had the number 1 cable news program in the world for over 100 months now… most of the time beating out all the other cable news shows combined.

He’s dead on.

His talking points articulate EXACTLY how I feel about all the crazy stuff going on in the world today.

And Bill is sharp as a whip.

I’m also a big patriot and supporter of the military.

So I proudly have the Patriots Welcome doormat outside our office door.

During the holidays we had the “we say merry christmas” sticker on the door too.

16. Good light, windows, and sunshine (it’s good to be back in FL).

One of the best parts of being back in Orlando is that FL is the sunshine state. Just about always good weather… or at least better than what other parts of the country are experiencing.

I’ve got 3 giant windows in my office that have great sun and light coming in all day long. Makes for a nice natural lighting in my workspace which definitely makes you feel good and energized.

I grew up in the cold, grey, dark of New England winters and being in the sunshine during the winter with palm trees outside your door instead of snow is just a whole lot more enjoyable to me.

17. Targus global traveler briefcase-

With all the traveling I do, I’ve looked into finding the perfect laptop/briefcase for years. Have tried several.

Got this one about 2-3 years ago and now I’m on my third one of the same model.

It’s very solid, travels well, and hold up under a ton of abuse.

Protects everything I travel with, not too heavy, and has a good strap that hooks onto my rolling suitcase in the airport.

If it weren’t for my dogs chewing the strap or handles off the first 2 ones I had… who knows I might still have the original.

——————

I could keep going.

But think that’s enough for now.

Hope this gives you some ideas, by sharing what’s working for me.

Have you got a favorite office tool or piece of equipment you love that makes your work easier and more productive?

If so please share, I’ll always on the lookout for some new tool to add to my toolbox.

Sean

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