(upbeat music) - All right, the next question we got, advice on setting up the ideal desk. - I'd like to get your advice on an ideal desk set up to do deep work. I have a standing desk that I vary at different heights as well as different chairs, but nothing seems to make me very comfortable.

I have chronic back issues, but they're aggravated depending on how I'm sitting and standing. I can't seem to find something that works and I've toyed with getting a different desk or chair. It really is important that I'm somewhat comfortable for the deep work I'm trying to do. Is there anything that you suggest or that you've used so that you can sit and do deep work or stand?

Thank you. - Well, okay, there's a couple of different issues here. There's the desk issue, and then there's the nature of deep work efforts themselves. Now, in your situation, what I might recommend is moving away from the model of here is my work location, this room, this desk, and this is where I am, and this is where I do my work.

There was a period, I don't remember what year it was, but there was a period where I was doing a lot of posts on my newsletter and blog, so calnewport.com/blog about, I think I called it adventure work. And I had a photo documentation of this. And what I would do is identify a series of locations around the Georgetown campus.

I would rotate between these different locations to do different types of work. And I had this whole theory about, it's nice, it changes the context. You go somewhere just to do one type of work. That's all you're focusing on, as opposed to being at the same desk where you also do emails, where you also do Zoom calls.

And I documented, here is a picnic table in the woods. That was literally one of them. Here is a library, the bioethical library, that's another one. Here is a overlook of the Potomac where you can sit on a bench and get work done. I took photos of these. And if you Google study hacks adventure work, you'll probably find it.

That might be more what you should be looking for here. A more peripatetic, so you're moving more, diverse location style work. I walk and think, then sit down in this location and do work. Then I get up and walk and think, go somewhere else. I'm in that location, I do work.

I'm never in one place for a long period of time. I like that style of work. I do a lot of that. And if you have back issues, it could really be a good option. Now you also mentioned ideal desk. So that gives me an excuse to talk about something I'm really excited about.

So it's a desk nerd geek out that I do wanna have briefly. So look, I'm not someone who spends a lot of money. I'm not, I don't drive fancy cars. I don't have multiple houses. But the one thing that we are investing some book money in, my wife and I, is we're taking my study, it's not my study, it's the study.

We do schoolwork in there, we do reading time in there. And we're doing a really cool renovation of that study, which is built around these custom four wall built in bookcases that are gonna be full of books. And there's a fireplace with a leather Chesterfield couch and a game table.

And like, it's cool, right? I mean, but the centerpiece of this, and it's the one indulgence I would say I've had with some of the success for my books is I'm having custom built a desk, being custom built by a company in Maine that hand builds primarily reading tables for university libraries.

So they pick out the trees and the wood and they build these very durable, beautiful American made reading tables for university libraries. And they're custom building me a deep work desk that's gonna fit three sides around it, built in bookcases. And then the middle is gonna be this custom built desk where I gave all the specifications, chose the wood and all the features.

It won't be done till July, right? I mean, this stuff takes time and it's a ridiculous thing in some sense, right? It's a ridiculous thing to spend money on. It's definitely not necessary, but it's my one indulgence is that my custom built a university style reading desk. And I'll tell you this about it.

There's not gonna be a computer on that desk. There's gonna be a really nice reading lamp. I will be willing to bring a laptop to that desk if I want to write at it, but then that laptop goes away. So it's gonna be independent from any sort of permanent electronic productivity tool.

I wanna sit there and work with my notebooks and I could write there if I wanna write, but then move that laptop when I don't wanna write, work longhand there when I wanna work longhand there. I'm really looking forward to that. So I'm a big believer in desk. My bigger point here being, and I've had a series of newsletter essays about this recently in November of 2021, I had a series of newsletter essays about interesting workspaces that people built.

I talked about Ian Colfer, who wrote the Artemis Fowl series, super best-selling kids series, the writing shed he built in his backyard. And I wrote about George Lucas's writing tower, this tower he had built onto the first Victorian house he owned in Marin County. And he built this tower with a view of Mount Tam and he wrote the first Star Wars in there.

On a desk, by the way, made out of three desks. So it just goes to show a desk doesn't have to be fancy. And my point in that whole series was, it's not a crazy thing to invest money in if you have money to invest, is over-the-top workspaces. Because it gives you a huge return if you're in a line of work where there is a huge variety in the quality of intellectual output that can be produced and better quality is gonna give you better returns.

If you write books for a living, if you write movies for a living, if you solve proofs for a living, if you have to have huge insights for a living, it's not a frivolous investment if you have the money to get a very nice desk or to built in bookcases or convert a garden shed into a writing shed or in the rundown house you bought with your money from American graffiti to put a tower on it so you can go up there and concentrate more on Star Wars.

These are bets that could really pay off. And we don't talk enough about them 'cause we don't care about the human brain enough when it comes to work. We just think about tools. Do you have the right computer and the right software, but environment matters. And so I geek out about desks.

I don't know. Is that crazy, Jesse? What do you think to spend kind of stupid amounts of money on a piece of wood? - Not at all. I mean, a hundred percent. I think you said it best. You don't, I don't think you spend much money on other stuff.

So like at some point you got to spend money on some things. Like I spend a lot of money on golf, but yeah. - And we have a pretty nice, our table here, I spent, it's not super nice, but we got a nice, you can't see it on camera, but Jesse and I are sitting at a, it's like a round, nice wood table with a sort of like metal pedestal, sort of like a, what's that guy's name?

Charlie Rose style setup. - It's got a good feel to it too. Like it's nice. - Yeah, solid. It's not in the, after all that work, it's not in any of the camera shots, but you know, we know it. We know it. We're happy about it. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)