Archives for October 2014

My Minimal Desk, Listed at MinimalDesks.com

Last week I did a post about my Minimal Desk Experiment.

It was an overview of how I transformed my multi-monitor, mega-desk into a sleek, minimal setup using only a 13 in Macbook Air. If you haven’t seen it yet be sure to check it out.

I just saw that my new setup has been featured on MinimalDesks.com. I’ve been a fan of the site for a year or two now. So when I was taking pictures of the desk for my blog post I thought it’d be worth it to submit it to MinimalDesks and see what happened.

If you’ve never heard of MinimalDesks.com, it’s a listing of beautifully minimal, yet functional desks and work spaces from offices and homes all over the world. To my knowledge it’s the biggest / most popular site in the minimal desk niche.

From the minimaldesks.com about page:

For years and years I have been fascinated with desks and workspaces. As a child I watched my grandmother sit at her desk to get her serious business done. She may have done her thinking, dreaming or conceiving in other places, but her desk is where she acted on these thoughts.

As an adult I seemed to adopt the same philosophy as my grandmother, and as a result, it is where I developed my affinity for minimal and simple desks or workspaces. The Internet is a fascinating creation and it enables you to find people just like you, and vice-versa. I soon realized that for lots of people, much like myself, a desk is the place where people execute their ideas, learn, manage their families, earn their living, plan their vacations, and so on. For most, a desk becomes the cockpit for ones entire life.

I created this site to curate some of the best desks and workspaces from around the Internet as well as inject it with my own commentary, ideas and philosophies. Minimaldesks.com is designed to inspire and aid you in your quest to create a desk or workspace environment that allows you to get your best and most important work done.

From MinimalDesks.com:

This is one of my favorite minimal desks from their website. The dishes and teapot mixed with the clock font and iMac give great contrast. It’s kind of home-y / futuristic. Really cool.

Big thanks to MinimalDesks.com for listing my new desk setup.
You can see the listing here.

If you have’t read the original post, you can read it here.

The Minimal Desk Experiment

When you look at the desk of any professional computer geek there is one thing that you are almost guaranteed to see.

Gigantic monitors.

I’ve worked with graphic designers, programmers, video editors and online marketers and the concept is echoed by almost all of them. “More monitor(s) equals more productivity.”

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not bashing people with multiple monitors at all. In fact I am the owner of two 30 inch Mac Cinema Displays and there are a lot of benefits to having gigantic screens.

Multi-tasking
Watching Movies
You can run more than one computer at the same desk

These are all great things about having a bigger screen.

But I hear a lot of people saying that you need a big screen to get more work done, or that having multiple monitors makes you more productive. And I’ve become suspicious that this, like most of the things you’re told in life just isn’t true.

It’s just another old idea that someone came up with a long time ago that we’ve all been repeating it ever since. I call it “The Echo Chamber” and when I hear the echo I have to investigate to see if it’s true for me. With this thought in mind I decided to run a desk setup experiment.

The idea: Could I make as much money using only my 13 in. Macbook Air as I could with a big, multi-monitor mega desk?

The Minimal Desk Experiment

To begin, I took a look at my current desk and… it was a mess.When I moved into my apartment I just pushed a desk into a corner, turned on my computer and started working. I haven’t given it much thought since.

What I ended up with was a mess:

Cables
Cords
Laptop
iPad
iPhone
chargers
Audio system with sub woofer
30″ Apple Cinema Display
Apple Magic Trackpad
Wireless keyboard

Step one was to get rid of all of it, leaving only my laptop and a chair.

Photo: The new minimal desk setup with nothing but a laptop and a chair.

Photo: The new minimal desk setup was so beautiful that I shot it from multiple angles.

Minimal Desk Elimination Process

The Elimination Process was simple. I remembered an old talk I’d heard about minimalism and how to reduce clutter in your home. The concept was that you packed your house like you were moving out.

Pack everything you own into boxes
Unpack things as you need them
Whatever is left in boxes (minus sentimental items) after a year gets donated or thrown away

I did a small version of that and packed up my desk.

I took everything off of the desk, until it was completely empty and put it into boxes. No mouse, no laptop, not a single cable was left behind. I wiped and cleaned the desk and looked at it and decided what I needed to bring back.

At first all I brought back was the laptop. I placed it in the middle of the desk and opened it. This was really all I needed, so I left everything else in boxes and started to work.

Slowly, I started to bring things back.

Power Adapter. After working for a few hours my battery started to get low, so I decided I would definitely need a charging solution. At first I tried setting up a remote charging station, to charge while I wasn’t working. But the back and forth quickly became a pain. So I brought back the power adapter.
Laptop stand. By day three my neck was strained from continuously looking down at my screen. I solved the problem by grabbing a pile of books and stacking them to make a stand. It worked, but I didn’t like that aesthetic. I remembered seeing a minimal laptop stand on Charles Ngo’s site a while back and ordered it on Amazon. It came a few days later, problem solved.
External Keyboard and Mouse. Raising the laptop up off the desk helped my neck, but it made it impossible to use the laptop’s keyboard and touchpad. So I grabbed my solar keyboard and magic trackpad from my gear pile and added it back to the desk.

Photo: Final minimal setup that I used for the last 3 months.

That was it. That was my total desk setup for most of the next three months. It was a thing of minimal beauty. The reduction of clutter and cords instantly set my mind at ease. (Clutter drives me nuts)

I began working and over time I had a series of thoughts and experiences, which I would like to share with you today.

Benefits of Using A Minimal Desk

Less clutter gives you more focus. The first thing I noticed was a feeling of ease. The mess of cables, cords and adapters were gone. When I sat down to work I felt like a futuristic writer, working in a spaceship.
Your eyes feel better. I didn’t realize how much eye strain my giant monitor was giving me until I took it away. My 30 inch monitor felt like I was being swallowed by the heat and light of the entire internet at once. Using the smaller monitor felt more like a small viewing window into my work.
You multi-task less. When you have giant screens in front of you it’s easy to open 10–20 different applications, browsers and tabs. Due to the reduced screen space I had to also reduce the number of things I did at once. Instead of having email, Facebook, Twitter, Photoshop, Dreamweaver and iTunes all running at once, I only had 1–2 things going at a time. This gave me more ability to focus and concentrate on the task at hand.
You use the computer less. Huge screens are like porn for a computer geek. Mega-desks are so comfortable that they become your favorite place in your house. You watch movies, Youtube videos, read news articles, work and eat while sitting in your battle station. Making my desk a little less pornographic and more of just a place to work reduced the amount of time I spent sitting there and increased the time I spent doing other stuff like, you know… reading a book or going outside.
You design more realistically. 99% of the people that see your web designs aren’t going to be using a 30 inch Cinema Display external monitor. They’re going to be on a laptop or a phone. When you design on a screen more similar to the one on which your work will be viewed, your designs become more user-friendly and more realistic for the average user.
You can travel without changing screens. For mega-desk users, travel is a problem. If you’re used to working on multiple monitors, your laptop screen is going to feel really cramped while you’re on the road. By using only the small laptop screen at home, your experience doesn’t change at all when you work in your hotel room during a conference. You can get just as much work done during your travels as you can in your home office.
Your desk is easier to clean. Look at your desk right now. When’s the last time you cleaned it? Having a huge setup makes it harder to clean your desk. Who wants to lift and move heavy machinery every week to do a quick wipe down? Having only the laptop, keyboard and mouse made it very simple to clean my desk more often.
People will be impressed. When people who know what I do for work come over to my house they expect to see a wall of computers and monitors – like they see in the movies. When they encounter my minimal setup it blows their minds. It’s like an opposite wow factor. Instead of being impressed by my amazing rack of servers, they’re in awe of my small, compact workstation with which I get everything done.

Did a Minimal Desk Result In More Money?

So all of the benefits listed above are great. But my initial question was could I make as much money with a single Mac Airbook as I could with a multi-monitor mega desk? So after the 90 days was up – I did the math.

I’m not a big fan of sharing exact numbers but I’ll tell you this. I added up the total profits from 3 month period previous to the experiment and then added up the 3 month period during the experiment. The result?

During the Minimal Desk experiment I saw a net profit increase of +392.99%.

I can’t attribute all of it to the new desk and I’m not saying it was a direct result of the changes I made. But… it happened.

My Takeaway: I can definitely work on a minimal desk without losing money.

Conclusion:

Working without an external monitor taught me that you don’t need a big monitor to be more productive or make more money. In fact, [tweetable]using a minimal desk setup increased my profits by 392.99%[/tweetable].

Gear doesn’t matter (for me). I can do everything I need to do with a single laptop monitor.

Of course, not everyone is like me and can use a standing desk made out of an iPad and a rubick’s cube.

Some people have legitimate reasons to have several monitors. I have another friend who runs 10+ virtual machines at a time and he also like to have a screen for each one .

But for the majority of people a single laptop screen is enough to get the job done. And if you’re into a minimal lifestyle – it’s a great thing to try.

If you’re new, start small and only add pieces as needed.
If you already have a mega-desk, pack up your desk and try it yourself

Here’s what you do:

Take everything off of your desk
Put it all in boxes or in another room
Only bring things back as you need them

You may find that you really do need a mega-desk.

Or you may find yourself the executor of a highly profitable garage sale.

99% Of The Time The Problem Isn’t The Campaign, It’s The Affiliate…

Like everyone else, I struggled with online marketing for years before I did well.

I installed a banner ad toolbar on my browser and only made a few pennies. I wrote thousands of SEO articles on Tumblr, Blogger and Weebly and they all got shut down. I copied an ebook and sold it on Adwords for a week before they original author had my site closed by my web host. I failed on all of these things.

It sucks when nothing works, especially when other people are doing so well and I blamed myself. It took me a long time to be able to look back and realize what was going wrong.

I wasn’t failing to due a lack of work ethic or discipline. (I was working 12 hours a day). I was failing because I was doing affiliate marketing wrong.

I was making every mistake I could make, the same mistakes almost everyone makes in the beginning. After I was able to fix those mistakes I got much better at it and things turned around.

If you’ve been busting your ass to do affiliate marketing but still aren’t making any money, here are some of the mistakes that I used to make, maybe they will help you too.

You read more than you act. It’s natural to want to understand every aspect of the industry before spending any money. But there is so much information out there that it can turn into a black hole. You could spend years studying how to swim, all the different strokes, but you’re not a swimmer until you jump in the water. There’s nothing wrong with educating yourself, but realize that continuous reading costs time and makes no money. The best way to get educated on how online marketing works is to launch a campaign.
You put toys and tricks over fundamentals. Affiliate marketing and the toys that come with it can be a lot of fun. But only a few things are necessary to get started. Offers, ads, landing pages, traffic sources and a tracking. Don’t waste your time on spy tools, multivariate split testing scripts, automation software etc. until you have a working campaign. Focus only on offers, ads, landing pages traffic sources and tracking. You can play with the toys later.
You expect it to be easy. Most people quit because they start with an unrealistic expectation that they can set up their first campaign, make a bunch of money and then go to the beach all day. When that doesn’t happen (it never does) they think the whole thing is a scam and go back to their day job. Start with the expectation that this is a lot of work and you’ll have a much better shot at lasting long enough to reap the rewards.
You work in a vacuum. Most people around me didn’t understand what online marketing was, so I worked alone for the first few years. It wasn’t until I found a friend (an affiliate manager) to talk to every day that I started to do well. Then I built a small crew of people I met at conferences and things really took off. Find some people you can talk to on a daily basis. All it takes is one. Find them on forums or at conferences. They’re everywhere.
You’re waiting for something. I remember thinking that if I could just find the secret, meet the right person or join the right forum that everything would be revealed to me. I was waiting for Superman to come and tell me where the hidden path to online riches was. It turned out it was right in front of me, all I had to do was start walking. If you’re waiting for someone or something to happen to make all the stars align – you can stop right now. Pull the trigger on a campaign, join an affiliate network, launch a site. Don’t wait for something, do something.
You have no goals. Initially my goal was to “make a bunch of money online”. I had no idea how to do it I just wanted to do it. So, I spent years jumping from one thing to the next, failing at each one. Then in 2008 I wrote down some goals. I wrote out exactly how much money I wanted to make, exactly how I was going to do it and exactly how much time it was going to take. A year later I had accomplished all of the goals 10x. If you want things to change, take an hour and write out your goals.

If you can fix these common mistakes, you’ll definitely increase your chances of success 10x or more. Fixing these problems changed things for me – and I hope they do for you too.

I’ll close with some advice someone gave to me in 2008 that changed my life.

He said: [tweetable]”99% of the time, the problem isn’t the campaign, it’s the affiliate…”[/tweetable]

At first, that really pissed me off. Then it sunk in. I was the problem – and that was a good thing, because I am the only part of the campaign that I have total control over.

If things still aren’t working the way you want them to – take responsibility, take action, take control.

Brain Music: How To Use Music To Boost Productivity, Work Faster and Focus

Most of us aren’t getting work done online because of a lack of focus. We’re distracted by the sounds and conversations around us. To solve this problem, you should create a playlist of music that helps your brain focus and listen to it every time you sit down to work.

We all know that music can impact the way we feel and change energy levels greatly.

We use music every day to create desired moods — to wake up, to get pumped up at the gym, to energize, to bring back certain memories and to help us relax. In effect, music “sets the scene” for many of our most important experiences.

So shouldn’t it be possible to use music to tell your brain it’s time to focus?

Absolutely, yes.

Research has shown that music can help you create a desired work atmosphere, increase attention, focus concentration and even improve your memory.

Jonathan Berger, PhD, Stanford associate professor of music and a musician said that music’s ability cause the brain to anticipate events and sustain attention could be music’s “evolutionary purpose“.

I was recently contacted by a subscriber, @samrexford on Twitter about listening to music while you work to focus. He sent me a link to a website called FocusatWill that curates and streams Focus music for you for a monthly subscription fee.

While it’s an interesting concept I don’t think it’s something I’d pay for. It’s just too easy for me to make a Focus playlist in iTunes or Youtube for free.

I sent Sam a screenshot of my current Focus playlist in iTunes to let him see how I do it and realized I’ve been listening to almost the exact same playlist for 10+ years.

So today, I’m going to share it with you.

Why Focus Music?

“Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents.” –Ludwig van Beethoven

Whether I’m working in an office environment, at home or at a coffee shop one thing holds true. I can’t think if there is a lot of stuff going on around me.

Ringing telephones, other people’s conversations, the radio, car sirens… any sound pulls my attention away from what I’m doing and screws up my flow.

When I really need to get things done I have headphones on and music playing that blocks out that outside noise. I listen to a very specific kind of music and mainly a single artist. I’ve found this type of music blocks out the outside sounds but also puts my brain into a flow state that allows me to output more work than most people.

Here’s how it works.

My Criteria For Focus Music

My focus music is very different than the music I listen to for enjoyment. When I need to focus, I can’t listen to music that has lyrics. Singer’s voices overpower my own thoughts, rappers are even worse.

So for me, Focus music has to have these qualities:

It has to be soft’ish
It has to be instrumental
It has to be steady

What I prefer is a smooth drone – something I can listen to on repeat for 2–3 hours straight without realizing it’s repeating.

Here are two of the artists that fit that criteria, that I have been listening to on repeat for the last 10+ years.

1. Boards of Canada

Many years ago a I asked a good friend and badass photographer Jeremy Charles for some suggestions on music to work to. He recommended a group called Boards of Canada, a Scottish electronic music duo made up of two brothers, and their album Twoism.

For me, Twoism is the quintessential album for focus. A minimalist lo-fi brooding soundscapes without words. It just plays in the background, blocks out all the sound around you and helps your brain focus on what you’re doing.

The legend of Twoism

Twoism was a self-financed cassette and record distributed by the band before they had a record deal. They only made 100 copies.

Because there was such a limited supply, copies of the cassette would often be exchanged from one person to the next for around $1500.

When the band signed a major label deal, the record company wanted to re-release Twoism. The band agreed, but only if there was no promotion behind the re-release. ” “We’d rather people find our music by themselves, so that it’s something that feels like it belongs to them.”

That’s how I found the album and now I pass it on to you. I’ve been listening to Twoism while I work for 10+ years. Actually, it’s playing as I type this, right now.

Other BOC albums to check out: Music Has The Right To Children and Geogaddi – I could listen to any of these albums on repeat for years without it becoming annoying.

2. Tycho

Tycho is very similar to Board of Canada but it’s different enough to break things up from time to time. Specifically I listen to the album Dive.

3. Amina

Amina is an Icelandic string quartet that I discovered while listening to a Boards of Canada station on Pandora.

I threw in two songs from their album Animamina to mix things up a bit. There are no drums or beats in the two tracks I added – so it gives my head a break every 30 minutes or so.

Amina is definitely an add-on for me and not the gold standard like Boards of Canada and Tycho.

Focus Music and Repetition

I’ve found that listening to the same music every time I sit down to work is beneficial. When I sit down at my laptop and my playlist starts – it immediately puts me in the zone to get things done.

I also listen to the same atmospheric music by Andy Hollander every time I walk from my apartment to the gym and then I listen to the exact same gangster rap playlist (almost 100% older 50 cent) every time I workout.

Listening to the same music each time is like giving your brain a cue that it’s time to do something. The music starts and your brain says “Ok, I know what this… let’s go.”

How To Create a Focus Music Playlist

1. Headphones

The first thing you’re going to need is a set of headphones or in-ear buds that block out noise. Listening to music without headphones is better than nothing the more you can vacuum seal yourself from the outside world, the better.

I originally bought a pair of the Bose Quiet Comfort headphones, which in my opinion are the best noise canceling headphones in the business. Then an affiliate network sent a pair of the Bose QuietComfort 20i earbuds that work almost as well and are way more portable and don’t need batteries – so I switched to the earbuds completely.

You can use any brand or style that you like – these are just what I’ve used.

2. Playlist

I no longer subscribe to any music services – so I created my Focus music playlist in iTunes.

Acquire the albums
Drag the song files into iTunes
Create a playlist called Focus Music
Drag the songs into the playlist and hit save
Arrange the songs to your liking
Focus

If you’re a Spotify customer you can do the same thing. But I don’t recommend doing it with a free Spotify account, because every few minutes you’ll get an ad for Toyota trucks or something that will totally destroy your work flow.

Conclusion

[tweetable]We all have work to do and we all need Focus to do it.[/tweetable] Using a Focus Music playlist is one of the best ways that I’ve found to get my mind in the place it needs to be to get things done.

The next time you sit down to work, try listening to these albums and see what happens. I’d be curious to hear how if it helps you as much as it helps me.