MBA1320 Q&A Wednesday: Hey Omar! What’s your office setup look like?

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Today's question is from Philip and Philip asks, hey Omar, what does your office setup look like? Thanks Philip for the question. I'll share with you my workspace setup. It has evolved over the years because of different initiatives, different things I've been working on with the business and my role has changed as CEO. So so I'll share with you how we've set up our workspace, what works, what hasn't worked and what we've changed and what has helped us become more productive. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. So Philip asks, what does my office setup look like? Like I mentioned, my office has changed over the years, but today this is what it looks like. Firstly, I actually have a totally separate room where I record this podcast. It's my recording room. We set up a recording booth in that room via a large walk in closet. We use some soundproofing foam, some shelving, and a nice place for me to prop up my mic, my iPad for my notes and reeds and all that kind of stuff, and of course, some shelving for my laptop. The podcast is such a big part of our business that we wanted to invest a bit and make sure that the quality of the recording is as good as possible before we pass it on to Carl, our sound engineer and editor. It's a small room with carpeting and the door is always shut. So I just wanted to kind of get that out of the way. I don't record in the same space that I work out of. In terms of my desk space. Recording is a totally separate room, allowing me to focus on just recording the podcast. Now, when it comes to our office, I share my office with my co founder and coo, Nicole Valdinu, and we've iterated over the years. I have to give a lot of credit to Nicole because Nicole is kind of the person who takes the lead in how we set up our workspace. It's more top of mind for her and I've learned from her how much space can influence your productivity and your mood to work and all that kind of stuff. So most of that genius is from her. But we have a very simple office set up and it's simple on purpose because clutter really is a distraction. It really allows you to be distracted. So recently we made some changes to get even more clutter free as possible. Our basic setup is we both have identical adjustable standing desks. These are desks we bought from ikea. IKEA has these great adjustable desks that you crank up and down, so you can use them as sitting or you can use them as standing. We have drafting chairs, those high chairs that, you know, an engineer or an architect would use. So really it's in the standing position most of the time. And we just use that drafting high chair to sit down when we want to take a break. Back to that IKEA desk. It's called the Skarsta. I think I'm pronouncing that right. It's S K A R, S, T, A. And we went with the larger size one. This is 120cm and 161 with a 160. Because we spend, you know, the vast majority of every day at that desk. And we want the space we want to feel comfortable and we just wanted larger desks. There's also something called the Alex that sits on top of the desk to prop up your monitor. And it comes these really nice drawers that you can stow away, like memory cards and memory drives or external drives, notebooks, all that scrappy stuff you usually just have laying on your desk, like post it notes. You can just pop them in those drawers, throw them away, and again to get rid of clutter in an instant. When it comes to tech, I have a 29 inch monitor sitting on my desk on top of that Alex. And I have it hooked up with an HDMI cable to my Apple Machine MacBook Pro. And I have an external keyboard or an Apple keyboard as well as an external mousepad. So my laptop's pretty much shut, the lid is shut, and it just projects with the HDMI cable to the monitor. And I use the keyboard to type and the mouse to navigate. This allows me the comfort to move the mouse around, to move the keyboard around, to adjust to if I'm sitting or standing or all that kind of stuff. It just gives me a little bit more comfort and a little bit more flexibility than having having to be restricted to the laptop keyboard and mousepad. I also have a mic, A Audio Technica ATR2100 that's on my boom arm. It's like 15 bucks or something on Amazon. And that boom arm clips to my desk and I have the mic adjustable. I can push it away, I can bring it to my mouth when it's time for me to record or be on a call or things like that. I have a Logic C920 camera, that's my webcam that I use for webinars and calls and videos. And recently I've upped my game when it comes to my setup on my desk because I want to make sure I can shoot videos easily from my desk and not have to do a full on setup with lights and, you know, DSLR camera and a background and all that kind of stuff. So I got myself a ring light off Amazon for $50, a really good powerful ring light that doesn't hurt your eyes as different kind of color tones. And it has its own tripod that you put right behind your monitor. And it lights my face perfectly for meetings, for webinars, for videos that I shoot. It's fantastic, one of the best investments you can make. I have a stack of post it notes and a notebook and a pen. That's all I have on my desk. That's really all I want and everything else I can manage and put away later on. Nicole did a great job with setting up the background of my desk because again, if I'm on webinars, if I'm in meetings, if I'm shooting videos, you want to have a pleasant background. So we put together a shelf. It's like a stainless steel shelf where I put my books there. It's a bookshelf, as well as some fun images and photos in my background, along with a office clock. A lot of people who attend my webinars, if you ever want to attend one of my webinars, you can go to webinar ninja.com workshop. They notice my background has a. A bunch of interesting photos, and they're actually print ads from David Ogilvy. I'm a little bit of a marketing and sales nerd. And some of those are my favorite ads from David Ogilvy from back in the day. The man with the Eyepatch, the Schweppes man. You can Google those and you can see what those look like. But the point here is that it shows a little bit of my interest in character in the background, and that's pretty much it. In fact, Nicole's desk has a similar setup with the mic and her computer and all that kind of stuff. There's a couple other things I highly recommend having in your office that we have that has really improved our productivity. Number one, and this was surprising. A Google Home Mini. A Google home mini costs 40, 50 bucks, and it's incredibly useful in the office. You know how many times I've asked Google questions and she's been able to answer them right on the fly. I don't know why I called it a she. Maybe it's an it or you're able to just on command, get a playlist off Spotify like brain food to keep you concentrated. Or find out what the traffic's like if you had to pop out for an appointment. It is fantastic. It's one of those small but amazing investments. In fact, I got it for Christmas from Nicole's brother, so I didn't even have to buy it. So it's a great gift and it's fantastic in the office. Another great tip, have some sort of cable management, that thing that sits on top of our desk. The Alex from Ikea allows us to kind of thread the cables behind the desks. And it's not pretty to have cables all over the place in eyesight. It creates a sense of confusion in your brain. Love the fact that we don't see cables anymore. Until everything is wireless in our world, this is the next best solution. 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Right?

And the best part?

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Except Discover in a little place like this?

I don't think so. Jennifer oh yeah, huh? Discover's accepted where I like to shop.

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These are making a comeback, I think.

Discover is accepted at 99% of places.

That take credit cards nationwide, Based on.

The February 2025 Nielsen report, the Jack.

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To wrap up today's Q and A Wednesday's question from Philip what's my office setup? My advice to you is think about what's going to allow you to remove all the obstacles that's stopping you from producing consistent work. If you shoot videos, have a setup that's gonna be there for you ready with minimal work to start shooting videos. If you're a writer, have a space that's conducive to writing. If you're doing podcasts, like I mentioned, have a special spot for you to record that's set up, that has a controlled environment so you have quality sound and quality production. Every time you step up to the mic, think about what you're trying to accomplish and think about how you can help make it easier for you to accomplish these goals with your space. And that's really what we've been trying to do over the years. Thanks for the question, Philip. For today's Q and A Wednesday, if you have a question, email me over at omar@100mba.net and if you love the show and want to hear all our episodes in the archives, over 1300 episodes. Hit subscribe to have free access. By hitting subscribe, you also tell whatever you're using to listen to this podcast. You like this podcast, and to give you a notification to have the episode ready for you when the next one is out. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Growing up, I remember my mom always wanting to change the furniture, change the room around, rearrange things in the living room every so often, maybe every 18 months or every two years. And I never understood it. But it does give you a renewed energy, refreshing things so you can do the same with your office. You need a boost, you need a change. You need to shake things up. Change, change your space. You don't have to buy anything new. You can just rearrange things, maybe add a plant, add an image, add a photo, add a painting, whatever. It can make a world of a difference. Thank you so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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