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S03E49 – Upgrade Season
Good morning 👋
It’s been an expensive end to my year. New (standing) desk, new (4K) monitor, new (14” Max) laptop. That’s around £4k in new gear. I’ve managed to make back > 50% selling what they replace. All in all, not bad business considering I expect the combination to meaningfully boost productivity. The M1 Max MacBook Pro in particular has been a revelation for a few reasons:
I can actually work on the couch again in the evenings because the battery doesn’t leak and my thighs don’t fire up. It’s enjoyable too because of the smaller form factor (I’m technically downgrading from the previous 16” Intel Mac).
Performance is incredible, even on battery. Building a project is so fast that I have no reason to momentarily switch to Safari. Sounds like a silly thing to write, but the difference just several seconds make shouldn’t be underestimated.
I still haven’t received the desk, and won’t set up the monitor until I have (I’m weird like that). I’ve found that there are consistent periods during the day when I’m struggling to get going, usually in the mornings these days. If the desk’s standing position manages to reduce this lull period by just 50% even, then it will make a big difference and would have been money well spent. Plus my back. I’m upgrading from a 2K 25” monitor to a 4K 27”. Hopefully that’s enough additional room to enable more focused sessions on the single screen (laptop in clamshell mode). As the desk is 20cm longer, this would mean I can use my mechanical keyboard again too. I expect the full setup to be in place at the start of the New Year. Can’t wait!
Have a great Sunday!
Best,
Bardi
P.S. on the topic of focus, I can’t believe the year is 2021 and neither MacOS or Windows allow you to have different Docks/Taskbars per virtual desktop.