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I'm finally trying to put together a good home office set up, and am wondering if anyone has a desk they love. Also any other good home office equipment to buy? I've got an ultra-wide monitor and a mechanical keyboard, but always looking for more improvements.

I've really liked having:

• a trackball
• a mostly-vertical wireless phone charging cradle
• a side/coffee table next to my chair
• a large vinyl desk mat
• a book stand between the keyboard and the monitor
• decent speakers

The coffee table takes the place of an l-shaped desk in some ways; I've got note paper etc. on the lower level and can use it to stack whatever physical materials I'm referring to. The trade-off with the book stand is maybe having to raise your monitor and therefore camera. The desk mat is nice to be able to set your mug anywhere. Think about lighting (especially re: Zoom meetings) and about ergonomics, too: the right height desk/chair/footrest combination.

Start with your requirements. How much space do you have? Do you want to use the desk for anything besides being really productive with a laptop and some monitors?

My answers to these questions were "not much" and "no" so I got minimalist black desk which I'm pretty sure is designed for hardcore gamers. It was great during the completely-remote era of COVID and for logging in to handle stuff at night/on weekends. If I had to frequently refer to printed materials of some kind, though, this would've been miserable, because there isn't space for more than a mouse, keyboard, and maybe a dinner plate on the working surface of the desk.

Docking station is a must—you should be able to plug your laptop into Ethernet and all peripherials using a single USB 3.0 connector, and then power is the only other thing you need—unless you're 100% never going to want to use your laptop elsewhere. Something I wanted, but couldn't quite get to fit, was a cooling pad for my laptop so the fans wouldn't be whining all the time.

Underrated desk hack is a standing/cradle induction charger for your phone(s) so you can see notifications at a glance and never have to fuss with charger cables. Now I'm never pawing around to find my phone because I got a text message, which turns out to be unimportant, and then leaving the phone on my desk where it takes up space and isn't getting charged. It just sits on that cradle.

These are helpful answers, thanks! I've got a Dell UltraSharp 34 Curved USB-C Hub Monitor, which functions as a docking station/laptop power supply and is wide enough that I don't need dual monitors. I do want space to review printed documents, plus a desk lamp - seems like that coffee table/L shaped desk option might be a good fit.

I've heard that having a lower keyboard tray is supposed to be good for your wrists, but I don't see that feature on any of the popular ergo desks, so maybe I have that wrong?

EDIT: accidental anon. This is OP.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 05, 2022 5:27 pm

I've heard that having a lower keyboard tray is supposed to be good for your wrists, but I don't see that feature on any of the popular ergo desks, so maybe I have that wrong?

Keyboard height relative to your torso is what matters. Main problem historically is that people would sit their monitor on a desk, and sit their keyboard on the same desk, and end up with a keyboard much too high (wrist strain) and a screen much too low (neck strain).

You need to be able to adjust your desk and/or chair height, to calibrate good typing posture, and separately have a way to get your screen(s) high up enough for good viewing posture.

Ideally you can then get that entire rig to move up and down as a unit so as to alternate between sitting and standing.

That's also where the footrest comes in. Desk height is what it is; keyboard goes on desk; chair height is adjusted to have proper typing ergonomics; appropriately sized footrest fills the gap to the floor.

Then you've got the monitor, which should be adjusted so the top edge is 3-4" above eye level. Depending on your monitor, you might replace the stand attached to the monitor, buy a separate stand/riser that your existing stand would go on top of, or buy a desk (or standing desk add-on) that has a built-in riser. Your eye-to-elbow distance doesn't change, so when you move your desk, everything stays in the right relation.

Re: lighting, I've got a couple desk lamps from TaoTronics with color-temperature adjustment; they're fine. The upgrade pick would be smart bulbs where you can set up different modes for certain times of day or tasks.

You might also want an uninterruptible power supply. Basically a battery backup that can give you a few minutes to shut things down in an orderly fashion if your power goes out. (Say, 20 minutes. It won't keep you working for hours.) Keep your router/modem plugged into it, along with at least one monitor and (if it's a desktop) your computer.

I've found the Wirecutter's recommendations generally helpful:

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/list ... e-at-home/
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/list ... me-office/
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/revi ... upply-ups/

It's mostly for gaming, but I find r/battlestations a very good source of inspiration for desk setups.

A very popular method is to get a butcher block tabletop from Ikea and pair it with a set of Alex drawers, also from Ikea. Relatively cheap, there's plenty of different sizes and woods for it to be customizable. You could also through a cheap desk leg or two in there if you prefer that to the drawers or wants an L or U shape.

mwells_56 wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 06, 2022 11:32 am

It's mostly for gaming, but I find r/battlestations a very good source of inspiration for desk setups.

A very popular method is to get a butcher block tabletop from Ikea and pair it with a set of Alex drawers, also from Ikea. Relatively cheap, there's plenty of different sizes and woods for it to be customizable. You could also through a cheap desk leg or two in there if you prefer that to the drawers or wants an L or U shape.

I just found that subreddit, super helpful! r/workspaces is also good - much smaller, but more focused on WFH.