An Ideal Workspace

Last September, Shawn Blanc described the importance of having a perfect workspace:

I am a staunch proponent for making it a routine to do our best creative work every day. Quantity leads to quality, and showing up everyday helps us overcome procrastination and build a “creative habit”. Why not show up every day to a work environment that is conducive to doing our best creative work? A space that serves us, inspires us, helps us, and gets out of our way and allows us to concentrate. It seems obvious in hindsight, but oftentimes it’s the low-hanging fruit of things just like this that we take for granted.

To be honest, I am a borderline fetishist when it comes to workspaces. I am keenly aware of how having a workspace set up for you can lead to a noticeable increase in productivity, focus, and flow. I spend a lot of my time browsing other people’s workspaces, looking for inspiration to tweak mine just a bit more.

There’s a more fun (and impractical) approach that might help you make real changes in your current workspace: what does your ideal workspace look like? That is, if money, location, and materials are not a consideration, what would your workspace look like? Where would it be?

Here’s mine:

• A 50’ square room overlooking either Boise or Seattle, surrounded in a pine forest. I can still see the city below, and at night, it’s beautiful. There are floor-to-ceiling windows with blinds for privacy, should I choose.
• The room contains a wood floor, and all furniture is made of iron, wood, and leather. There would be a desk capable of switching between standing and sitting.
• One of the walls has a workbench mounted to it for its entire length, with whatever I’m working on scattered about.
• Another wall would be a floor to ceiling library, containing books about programming, design, photography, and Disney.
• A Retina 5k iMac, fully-upgraded.
• A Happy Hacking Professional 2 keyboard, white, with printed keycaps. Conveniently, this is the keyboard I use each day.
• Several Sonos speakers that are playing a mix of classical, orchestral, and Disney music. I could switch genres with my voice.
• Google Fiber, wired into my iMac.

Of course, having such a workspace is not only impractical, but likely will never happen. However, by dreaming about that workspace, I can get as close as is reasonable for my current living situation, like buying a nice keyboard or having lots of natural light.

What does your idea workspace look like? I’d love to know on Twitter.