The Bliss Station Evolution + What’s on my desk

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trevin

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From the 3rd book (Keep Going) of Austin Kleon’s 3 part series Steal Like an Artist

In The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell said everyone should build a “bliss station”;

You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation.

At first you may find that nothing happens there (yes, there are those moments some days, lol)😆. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen (let’s hope so,jk)🙏🏼.

The past couple of years have probably taught us all about all the reasons why it’s important to have a good home office space such as creating boundaries, work-life balance, comfort and creativity and so on so I am not going to dwell on that today. Instead I will show you what I have built over the years, where I started and how it evolved.

My Setup Today

This is what works for me after trying and testing several electronics, furniture, desk accessories and practices over the years. Some items stood the test of time, some didn’t. Some items cost me money and some made me more money.

I like to think of all the time and money spent as an investment because this bliss station is where I do some of my best work and make a buck while enjoying it.

I have posted below the evolution of how this setup came to be what it is today with pictures, links and prices of all purchases (and sales) made throughout my WFH journey as a Business Systems Analyst, Consultant, Project Manager and Practice Head from Pre-covid till today.

Note that my setup has always been unique to my needs at the times and circumstances of the kind of work and device preferences I have so take everything with a pinch (or more) of salt.

Scroll to the bottom for items list and cost (or read on if you want the little details of history)

Evolution of the Setup

Initial Setup – (B&B) Barebones & Budget

Setup 1

Late 2018 – This was my very first setup when I arrived to Australia that got me through freelancing and job hunting.

Total Cost – $135

Breakdown:

  • Asus VivoBook with 32GB SSD + 8GB RAM – $120 from Facebook Marketplace – Touchscreen BEAST for the price!
  • Wireless Keyboard and Mouse Combo – Kmart $15
  • Acer 24″ monitor 1600*900 – picked up from the street!
  • IKEA Desk with Height Adjustable Legs – also from the street in perfect condition!

This setup lasted for more than I would have liked it to and made me my first online dollars while freelancing for a client in Canada.

Upgraded the SSD to a 120GB that I found for $20, used it for a couple of months and sold it at $150 for a profit of $10.

Total cost so far : $0 +$10 profit

V2 – Full HD Yoga Beast (Y700)

June 2019 – My employer at the time had a BYOD policy and the barebones setup wasn’t quite cutting it with performance so I had to splurge a few dollars to get some work done without the lag.

Picked up something with enough power to to run business apps –

Lenovo Y700

This was a Lenovo Ideapad Yoga Y700 with

  • Intel Core i7 6th Gen Quad Core Processor
  • 16GB DDR3 RAM
  • 320GB + 120 Dual SSD
  • Intel and Nvidia (4GB) switchable graphics

Cost of Acquisition: $350 – Facebook Marketplace –

Side note: I also picked up a pretty comfy chair that did stand the test of time from the street and cleaned it up good – this got me through some of my best work at the time and lasted longer than the laptop!

The laptop had the performance but at the cost of weight and heat – given it was a gaming laptop and wasn’t the most portable – it didn’t stand the test of time although it had a decent amount of power and 1080p screen I was dying for at the time.

So I cleaned it up and sold it for a profit of $100 at $450 and splurged a little more for a neater, slicker, spectre-cular setup.

Total spend so far = $240 (350 – 10 profit earlier + 100 profit here)

V3 – The Spectre-cular Hub!

Oct 2019 – Exciting times. I was making a decent amount of money and wanted something slicker that I can take with me on client visits and also enjoy working with.

So yes, I splurged a bit (on the tech, not the chair – hey it was SO comfy, and ergonomic!)

The spectre-cular setup included;

Total Cost – 900 + 40 + 20 + 40 + 100 = $1000

I LOVED this setup and it was well worth the money.

The laptop was smooth and slick and had all the power I needed all in a nifty 360 rotatable touchscreen that I would use as a tablet or even have it stand on its own or lay flat on the desk for whichever configuration worked at the time.

The HP Pavilion 25cw 25-in IPS LED Backlit Monitor also had fantastic display quality and brightness so the glare from the window didn’t bother my workflow.

The Microsoft Wireless Desktop 3000 Keyboard and Mouse was also pretty good in terms of quietness and comfort.

The Jabra Evolve 65 UC Wireless Stereo Headset completed the circle had amazing connectivity to the laptop via USB dongle and seamlessly connected to the Samsung Galaxy S10+ Plus Android I was using for switching between calls.

I used this setup and enjoyed it for quite a while until I made the move to Mac after some experimentation. And for a long time Android+Windows person and advocate, this took some getting used to but it finally happened to me..

V4.1 Experiment – Return of the Mac

I started off with my old 12″ MacBook which I had given to my partner to study for her MBA at the time. This was the lightest niftiest laptop that existed at the time – purchased back in Sri Lanka for LKR 90,000 (which is about $350 AUD or $250 AUD).

I loved the portability but decided it wasn’t suitable for work at the time of purchase but 2 years later when I decided to give it a try, everything still worked flawlessly without affecting my workflow too much.

Client presentations and workshops and all that jazz – clients were impressed that I used a Mac (who thought) and it made my boss look good too at the time – even when he didn’t pay cent for it.

POC

No USB A ports and a single USB C port meant I had to channel all my accessories through a dock – which I already had so I decided to use it for a couple of days and ended up loving how fluid and easy to use MacOS was – and I never went back.

It wasn’t easy to say good by to the Spectre but I ended up selling it on eBay, yet again for a profit of $200 i.e AUD $1100 and decided to get myself a MacBook Pro with the cash. Ended up buying from the same place I did the Spectre.

Unfortunately the first one I bought did have some issues but the vendors were nice enough to send me another one before I shipped it back so this is me testing out a couple of MacBooks at home until I found the right one.

I ended up buying a 2017 MacBook Pro 13″ that had a i5 1TB SSD, 8GB RAM and the fancy Touch-bar configuration!

The 20″ iMac on the side was another street pick – 2009 model which we used for Netflix – damn Aussie Hard waste is good.

V4.2 – Pro Mode

Only change here was the MacBook which I replace the beloved HP Spectre with. Bye-bye Windows!

I spent $1300 on the laptop this i.e. $1100 from the previous sale +$200 cash

Total spend so far $1500 ($1300 on the laptop and $200 worth accessories)

V5 Mo-Power Mo-Space Please

Late 2020 – COVID + Lockdown times, fully working from home. Learning new things like PowerBI – that doesn’t run on Mac! What?? But Love Mac now and its workflow and there’s no going back. And the 8GB RAM didn’t do so well with a Windows VM on it.

I also needed more space (screen real estate) and didn’t like the way dual monitors worked with the Mac so I wanted to try out the wide screen setup. This setup took quite a bit of work in terms of perfecting but it was all worth it once it was done.

The Setup:

With money saved from not commuting and and a hefty tax return I splurged yet again on a 2020 MacBook Pro that had 16Gs of RAM and a better processor which meant it could handle a Virtual Machine so I could learn PowerBI and build those dashboards – didn’t end up doing that for long cause I ended up being promoted to a management position. My wife still uses the old MBP and its running well!

The first monitor I tried out was an LG 29WL50S – 29 inch UltraWide Full HD IPS Monitor for $250 on Facebook Marketplace. The pixel count, picture quality and sound output on this wasn’t so good so I ended up returning it for a loss of of $50 and buying the one I have above.

The story behind the desks…

I also drove an Uber at the time which meant I wasn’t totally locked down as long as I was wearing a mask and following all the safety regulations. I found an office in Docklands, that was closing down and were selling almost brand new IKEA Hilver Tabletops and Alex Drawers as a set for $100 each. I brought 5 of them for $450 and sold 5 sets for $200 each and kept the other one for myself so free desk + $300 profit.

The next most meaningful upgrade was replacing the Dual Monitor Stand, VESA Monitor Arm which freed up a lot of desk space for me and at just over $50 it’s still holding on to my heavy ass 34″ screen for over 2 years now it’s overdue for an upgrade

Note the ripped chair – after all the money spent on the tech and desks and moving house also, I am still using the chair I picked up from the kerbside in 2019 – it was so damn comfortable!

I used this setup until the end of 2021 and sold the desk for $150

V6 Slim Shady – please stand up

Dec 2021 – Jun 2022 – Bought an electronic sit-stand desk, a new keyboard and mouse (the Apple Mouse and it being so flat was giving me bad RSI!) and an iPad I use mostly for reading and annotating PDFs .

Also added some lighting and (more than a) few accessories like the Laptop VESA holder, lamps, iPad and a bigger Alex Drawer set on wheels for $50 and a Printer I got for free from the guy who sold me the sit-stand desk

Adding so many things eventually meant my desk and workspace becoming noisy and messy fast – so the next upgrade was focused on subtraction and focus meaning reducing clutter ie anything that didn’t directly contribute to my work and productivity – had to go.

V7 Productive Bliss

2023 – Clean Up! This is what my WFH setup looks like today where the overhaul focused on removing as much visual clutter and distracting elements as possible and still keep it functional. This has allowed me to gain what is most important with the work I do – CLARITY and FOCUS.

The only major purchase here was an Orbitkey Deskmat which I purchased from amazon for $134 and have been using for over 7 months now that keep my cable accessible and all working and reference neatly tucked under a felt layer. This was probably the only full-price purchase I ever made and is so worth it as I can tuck away any documents, receipts, reference cards and even my ruler etc under the mat which instantly clears visual clutter but is also a very quick catch all so I can access them easily when I need to.

I still keep the iPad sometimes if I need to refer to a book or use it as a Pomodoro timer.

So the final list as promised;

Base Setup A$ 4130 over 2-3 years

Extras A$ 955 over 1-2 years

So,

Is a >$5K setup worth it in terms of productive output, creativity and overall work satisfaction? For me, yes!

For the most part of the past 4-5 years I have been working from home, yes, pre-covid, and I didn’t have the environment I always wanted to so I built it up, piece by piece.

The fun was always in the process and each item added or subtracted from the setup always had a direct impact on the amount of results I’d generate and eventually the money I would make.

Is it necessary to spend that much for a good WFH setup?

Absolutely NOT. My spend above is over 3-4 years and if I were to build the same set up today I would end up spending way less and could probably have done it in half the cost. Also taking into account here that I purchased my own laptops and devices where I spent the most money on. And I still have both MacBooks with me although I have offset the amount I spent on the first one and money earns from sales of previous gear/furniture to arrive at a net position of under $4K – all of which were recovered via Tax Returns – so essentially spending close to nothing.

YearPhasePurchase/SaleSpend/RevenueNet Position
2018BarebonesAsus VivoBook-120-120
Wireless KB & Mouse Kmart-15-135
SSD upgrade-20-155
Sold140-15
2019YogaLenovo Ideapad-350-365
Sold Lenovo45085
2019SpectreLaptop purchase-900-815
HP FHD monitor-40-855
MS Desktop 3000 -20-875
HP USB C Mini Dock-40-915
Jabra evolve-100-1015
Sold Spectre110085
2020MBP 2017MacBook Pro Purchase-1300-1215
LG monitor-50-1265
Macbook Offset to partner130035
2020MBP 2020New MacBook Pro-2900-2865
Samsung 34 WQHD monitor-450-3315
IKEA desk purchases-450-3765
IKEA desk sales800-2965
monitor arm-50-3015
2021DeskSold Ikea desk150-2865
sit stand desk-350-3215
2022accessoriseLogitec MX Keys and Mouse-296-3511
Orbitkey deskmat-134-3645
wireless chargers-35-3680
Logitec 1080p webcam-40-3720

So if you’re smart about when and where you buy your stuff, and your workplace provided you a laptop, you could do something equally great or even better in under $1000 easily.

Let me know what you thought of this post and my approach to building a Bliss Station and don’t forget to read some of my favourite books that lead me towards this process;

and for successfully leveraging creativity throughout my career as a Business Analyst, Consultant, Project Manager and Practice Head:

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