Data Science Desk Setup to Maximize Productivity

Key Takeaways

hey everyone welcome to a new video my name is dave and my goal is to help you level up as a data scientist and in today's video i decided i'll share my workspace with you so my desk setup and all the hardware that i use to do my data science work so as data scientists we obviously spend a lot of time behind their desks so we better make sure that it's optimized that's efficient and that we like it of course so we can better do our work so over the past three years or so i've made little tweaks and little upgrades to this whole setup to basically optimize for three objectives so the first one being productivity the second one being ergonomics and the third one being aesthetics so i work as a freelance data scientist so i work 100 from home so this is really next to my bed this is the place where i spend the most time so this really is my happy place um so i want to make sure that i like it that it's productive and it's ergonomic and also that it looks really cool so that's what i will show you in today's video so yeah let's dive into it so instead of making a fancy montage with some b-roll and a voice-over i decided to just take out my iphone and record the video like this everything that i mentioned will be linked in the description so if you're interested in any of any of the parts you can look them up so let's start with the desk itself which is the most unique part about this whole setup in my opinion and that is because it's consists of four separate parts from ikea so as you can see there are two uh jars over here and on top of that is a kitchen work table this is a well-known ikea hack where you buy the two drawers and then put put the kitchen worktop on top but what i've added is a sit standing mechanism that you can buy separately so this is just the bottom part and as you can see it fits right in between the two drawers and this turns this whole setup into a sit standing desk that i can put up and down so it's electrically powered which is very nice um yeah overall the four parts uh all have like the same color so they give like a nice aesthetic and there's also a lot of room for storage in the drawers as well so yeah really happy with how that turned out so that is the desk part of this whole setup and then the main laptop that powers this whole setup which is my 13 inch m1 macbook pro from 2020 so this has the m1 chip and this is perfect for data science the the m1 chip is super fast and it runs all the programs really smooth so i'm a mac user now i used to work on windows for like the past 20 years or so i've been working with with windows but at the beginning of this year i completely switched to mac and i'm loving it so far what i really like about this whole setup is that it's powered with only two cables at the moment so if i unplug these two cables i can just take my macbook with me go somewhere else and then once i get back home and want to use the setup again i just put my macbook here plug the cables in so that is what powers this whole setup and then the monitor so this is a really awesome monitor it's a 4k 32 inch dell ultra sharp um i really love how huge it is and once you get used to it it's pretty hard to go back to a smaller monitor it's probably a bit overkill for just uh data science work because it has a really high color accuracy that's also what makes it on the expensive side but i also like videography and editing photos so that's why i decided to go with this screen so for the color accuracy um yeah besides that i love working with one large monitor instead of dual monitors so i do use my macbook screen to put my calendar and my tasks on for example but when i work this is where my main focus goes so then the mouse and keyboard which are both from logitech they're both wireless the adapters go into the back of this monitor they have used this monitor has some usb ports so that's really convenient they both go for about two weeks i think then i have to charge them not a big deal you can also use them while they are charging so that is nice so this is the mx keys keyboard which i really love it's really nice and sturdy it's pretty heavy there's bad lighting it has some media keys so really awesome and then this is a gaming mouse it's the logitech pro x super light so it's a really light mouse and i really like that and it's a gaming mouse so it's really accurate so i really like that like the speed and accuracy of this mouse i've tried the amex master in the past which is a really popular mouse but i prefer this one over the mx master definitely um so then there's also a mouse mat over here which is also from logitech a big nice one to cover the the main area of the desk also gives like a nice aesthetic to complete the look so three items from logitech and then this microphone setup which i've recently upgraded to this is the shure sm7b which is a really popular microphone amongst youtubers and podcasters because it's a really high quality microphone probably a bit overkill for just data science and when you have to do your team meetings but i've upgraded to it to basically improve the quality of my videos and the tutorials that i make so i want to go into all the details but so the microphone is hooked up to a rode psa arm it goes into this audio interface from focusrite and then somewhere down there behind the desk is also a cloud lifter to uh make the quality of this microphone even better um so yeah it's quite a complex setup but it's really awesome and one when i have a meeting i can just put it into place and then my camera will be over there while i have my teams open and then microphone will be here and audio will be nice and clean and once i'm done with the meeting i'll put it away so yeah that's really nice get it out of the way take it whenever you need and yeah i really love the microphone setup so far what else we got we got the speakers over here so there's one over there and also one over there which are logitech speakers with a nice rgb backdrop there's also a subwoofer um audio quality is really nice so i use those when i listen to some music when i edit my videos or of course when i'm in meetings to hear my team yeah the the rgb backdrops uh give like a cool ambience uh i think um really gives a nice look then i also got my bose quiet comforts here which are awesome headphones i've had these for five years already i think and i love them i use these when i really want to do a focus session and i wanna when i'm coding for example i put these on listen to some some music it really gets me in the zone so loving those as well um then let me see i always keep a notebook by my side not really to write notes but basically when i'm writing code i like to plot out and draw out functions for example this really helps with my thinking so i always keep a notebook around and then over here we got a monitor arm attached to a laptop stand which create like this floating effect for my laptop which i really like and it's also very convenient because this way i can just keep my laptop here use my camera over there and i can also use it as a second monitor as i mentioned to put my calendar on and stuff and it creates a nice clean look and then we got the chair which is a secret lab omega i really love this chair it's basically a gaming chair but it's made to basically sit in it all day and yeah really support your back so it has this lumbar support cushion and this neck support cushion so yeah lovely chair perfect to sit in all day and also think it looks really cool and it matches the overall black and white aesthetic of this whole setup and then the final awesome part about this desk is this little remote over here that is connected to these automated blinds from ikea so i can use this remote to lower the bra the blinds and control them and this remote get stuck underneath this desk using a little magnet so that's really nice so when the sun shines through this window into my monitor for example i'll just tap the bottom over here and i can control the blinds to make sure i can see my screen so yeah everything is set up in a way so that it doesn't matter whether i'm coding or i'm in a meeting or whether i'm recording a video um everything is within a hand's reach so whenever i do my work this will be my main focus then whenever i have a meeting i will grab the microphone over here i'll have the meeting over there with my camera here so yeah when i do a focus session i put on the headphones listen to some music get to work and also switch between sitting and standing by elevating this whole setup and also all the cables everything is managed in such a way that i can just put this desk at like a standing level without having to tweak with any of the cables so that's also really nice and of course there's also a lot of storage over here so yeah pretty happy with how this setup turned out as i said i've tweaked and upgraded it a couple of times over the years and i will probably continue to do so so yeah let me know what your favorite part about this desk is i would love to hear that and if you have any questions about any of the parts or anything that i like i explained just leave a question in the comments i'll be happy to answer it all right and that's it thank you guys for watching this video if you liked it i would really appreciate it if you hit the thumbs up button and subscribe to the channel i'll be making more videos related to data science machine learning and python so if that's something you're interested in you should definitely subscribe see you next time