Hello, I’m Michael Sliwinski, founder of Nozbe - to-do app for business owners and their teams. I write essays, books, work on projects and I podcast for you using #iPadOnly in #NoOffice as I believe that work is not a place you go to, it’s a thing you do.
The gradual yearly evolution of my personal home office, from back in 2008 till now - this is the room where it happens.
I keep fine-tuning my home office and after rearranging it for 2023 and working like this with the M1 MacBook Air I decided to move some things around and make some more premium room on the desk for my iPad Pro and the result is this:
Recently I wrote about my new 2023 home office setup where the key part of it is the M1 MacBook Air. Some people reading that article got a wrong impression that I’m no longer #iPadOnly. They thought I ditched my beloved 13” iPad Pro. That’s not true. Quite the contrary, the iPad is still my main computer. In fact, I’m writing these words on my iPad. I’m doing most of my creative work on the iPad. But… the M1 MacBook Air is an important back-stage/secondary computer and that’s why I need it in my home office:
Time for my annual home office update as it’s different from the one set up for 2022 when I configured a streaming kit. I thought that setup was going to stay for years to come. I even recorded a short video and a long video walkthrough about it. Well, this all changed when my iMac 5K became too old to get MacOS updates and I had to swap it for an M1 MacBook Air earlier this year. Going back to the laptop and external screen setup in my home office was something I haven’t done since 2012 with a MacBook Air connected to a Thunderbolt Display. Here’s my new 2023 setup, which I have been testing for the last few months and so far has been working pretty well for me:
After I’ve published a teaser of my new home office as well as it’s details like the iPad Corner, virtual meeting setup and detailed photos - it’s time for a full video walkthrough:
A few months back I recorded this video short for our Nozbe YouTube Channel but I never published it until today - and apart from being lots of fun, I think this video of 10 things I recommend you get for your home office is very informative - so just get these things:
As I was tweaking my home office recently (which I constantly do, as you know!) and installing my latest Lego F1 Set and figuring out what I’d do with old trusty Thunderbolt Display, I came up with an idea for a dedicated iPad stand-up desk. This way I can work standing (which I’ve been doing since 2012!) on my iPad Pro and enjoying the double-monitor productivity, which will be even more enhanced in iPadOS16 - this is how the setup looks like:
Last year I read a blog post by Matt Mullenweg - the founder of Wordpress where he explained his high-quality streaming setup - he revised this post this year with more updates. Later I read a similar post by Seth Godin. As I do quite a few interviews, record podcasts and have some zoom meetings with my Nozbe team, I decided to upgrade my setup, too. I explained some of it in my latest “office update” post but here are more details:
I’ve spent lots of time setting up my home office for 2021 and I was really happy with my setup… until I started recording No Office podcast and talked to quite a few professionals about recording podcasts and videos. That’s when I decided to start upgrading everything. I’ve also changed my windows, moved my desk to a different place and added new gear… and I’m very happy with the result:
As I mentioned recently, I love tinkering in my home office. Just look at all my past blog posts about it. Even though I updated my home office as early as last year, the pandemic and the increasing number of podcasts like NoOfficeFM and interviews I’m doing made me tinker a little more and create a dedicated space for recording and online meetings. Here it is:
I love tinkering. Manual crafts always attracted me. I love building lego blocks and I definitely have enjoyed changing and re-designing my home offices many times over the years. Just look at the details of my current one. And yet, I’m about to improve it even more! Here’s the photo from today with all the materials brought in to start working on it this coming Friday:
