Creative & Productive Computing Desk Setting

I always think about improving my productivity.

And I love being creative.

So I quite often think about and seeks to ways of improving my productivity & creativity,

and this time I'll write about setting the computing workplace.

I believe one great way of discovering something new is to be inspired by others.

First, about more on being productive:

I searched for some workplaces of some well-known "cool" "new" "geeky" software companies.

Here are some pictures of workplaces of those companies:

Twitter

(image from here)

Facebook

(image from here)

Google

(image from here)

So, what did I learn & tried & learnt from those pics? What are the lessons?

1. big screens are good.

2. dual monitors can be quite helpful while in programming.

(you're probably already aware of those things already)

3. it's really comfortable and helpful for programming when you put yourself to the corner of 'L' shaped desk.

(man, this really is!)

Now about being creative as well:

I searched for how Pixar's workplace look like:

Pixar

(this is John Lasseter's office. Image from here.)

(this is Lee Unkrich's office. Image from here.)

Lessons?

4. put something which can inspire you.

5. make it comfortable and your style.

(boring?)

Then I read about Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg's day life (from here), that

"Zuck would come into the office and, seeing every chair full, just lie down on the thin carpet on his belly, sandals flapping, and start typing into his little white Mac iBook."

Yeah, how is it? I tried. And it's nice to make myself comfortable during computing.

But not always, you know.

(image from here.)

They say, to be creative and inspiring, you need to make yourself the most comfortable.

Some "top-thinkers" of some design companies etc., say they need absolute comfortable chairs to make themselves think properly.

And lying down with computer is one way of making yourself comfortable, change from the desk-sitting, refresh and be inspired --- may be.

Now I'm quite a believer in working on laptop, like the Zuck --- maybe.

(image from here)

oh, the lesson:

6. make yourself most comfortable - bring your laptop with you to the most comfortable place and position.

So, how do I combine all of those lessons learned to maximize the productivity & creativity?

I. set the computer to the corner of the 'L' shaped desk and sit there

II. set your big monitor on top position of your laptop (like in the pic of Facebook office above).

In doing so, you can bring your laptop with you to the whatever comfortable place & position and work with your laptop,

and when you'll need a desk and/or big monitor, you can very easily & quickly connect your laptop to the monitor & etc, not changing too much of your working environment.

And programming at the corner of the 'L' shape is very comfortable.

And a blog post about finding a perfect office chair: here.

Igudesman & Joo

Those things are one of the things I wanted to do when I was carrying out career in classical music performance...
Brilliant guys!

t(good_idea) = bad_idea?

Sometimes you think something is such a good idea, and think, when you make a product out of this idea, it will be a big hit. (You don't? Well, I do...)

One of them was something like the 3D Timeline, a product of BEEDOCS.

I was thinking "managing my timeline in nice representable 3D form will be great!"

Then I noticed that there is a commercial product out there already, and I tried it.

Well, it was less then what I expected.

Or probably, there needs to be a lot of work, to make it really easy and intuitive to use.

Then I happened to use the MS Project.

Man, it's so much easier and intuitiver to use, and is so much more helpful and useful to me!

Don't really care about 3D representation of my timeline, when it's nice, easy and intuitive to use like this!

So now, after a while of time (with the function of time t(x)), my idea about 3D representation of timeline found out to be, it was not so much a good idea after all, I think.

Cartoon and Creativity

What comes across your mind when we talk about "CREATIVITY"?

Music, Art, Literature ...

Design ...

Animation, Cartoon ...

...

Those are just the ones they come across my mind quickly.

I'm often amazed how creative the cartoonists are.

From considering and making out the story and concept and drawing the characters ...

My hut off to them.

Yet a lot of them don't get much fame or make their living with their cartoon works.

One of those (a Korean one), which I came across recently:

HERE