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2026-03-04notes3 min read

The setup I build from.

Desk, PC, software. What sits on the table and what I actually use, day to day.

Desk at night under a warm LED bar. Curved ultrawide showing a mountain wallpaper, MacBook on a stand, small Ditoo clock, mechanical keyboard, soft warm light.

What sits on my desk and what runs on it. Sharing in case it helps someone setting up theirs.

On the desk

  • Samsung 34" curved ultrawide, 2K
  • Lenovo 16" portable display below the ultrawide. The real use is when I'm out of the house: a portable second screen is worth more than I expected. Recommend.
  • MacBook Pro M3 Pro on a vertical Twelve South stand (eye level, no neck strain)
  • Logitech G Pro Superlight mouse
  • Logitech G915 TKL keyboard
  • HyperX mousepad
  • iPad for handwritten notes and reading (rarely as a screen)
  • A Ditoo retro mini-PC clock on the shelf, mostly for decoration, and a warm LED bar above it

PC

The big box under the desk that I barely use these days. The MacBook is the main machine. The desktop comes out only when I need software that isn't on macOS.

  • Ryzen 9 3900X
  • 32 GB DDR4
  • AMD RX 6600 XT
  • 250 GB NVMe + 1 TB SSD
  • 750W Gold PSU
  • 240mm AIO liquid cooling
  • Mid-tower case

Same desk during work hours, code on the ultrawide, second laptop screen with a build running, iPad in the back showing notes.

Software

The stack is small on purpose.

  • VS Code + Claude Code, the bulk of the coding day. Claude Code handles the repetitive parts so the editor stays focused on the thinking.
  • drawio, quick architecture sketches when I need to draw to think.
  • Brault, notes (canvas), files (boards and folders), AI search. The product I build, and the one I use to organize the rest of the work. Eats its own dog food.

What I don't have, deliberately

  • No second monitor. Tried it. The mental cost of choosing where things go was higher than the win from more pixels. One ultrawide, well-organized, beats two screens fighting for window placement.
  • No standing desk. I have a large custom-built one instead. A standing one might be in a future setup, not this one.
  • No fancy ring light. The warm LED bar gives enough fill for calls and the MacBook camera handles the rest.

The piece I'd defend

The warm LED bar at 2700K. Cold-white office light at night messes with sleep, and being responsible for technology at a startup means I can't afford to mess with sleep. It's the cheapest piece in the room and the one I'd replace last.

Why this matters

Every piece on the desk earned its spot for a reason.

Comfort. Eight to twelve hours sitting in front of the same screen. The chair, the screen height, the keyboard angle aren't optional. They're what keeps your back, neck, and wrists from filing complaints in five years. People talk about ergonomics like it's a luxury. It isn't.

Visual cleanliness. A messy desk steals attention you didn't know you had. Cables hidden, surfaces clear, only the things I actively use within reach. Less to look at means more brain available for the real problem on the screen.

Room to think. Cold light, harsh contrast, and ambient clutter push the brain toward defensive mode. The warm LED bar isn't decoration. It's the difference between thinking clearly and just typing.

Taking care of the body. Long sessions are the default in this work. The setup isn't designed to make hard hours less hard, that's impossible. It's designed so those hours don't break your body. Posture, lighting, breaks. The boring stuff doesn't show up in a photo, but the back, the neck, and the eyes remember every shortcut.

The setup matters less than the work, until it doesn't. Most days you don't notice it. The day you have a fourteen-hour debug session is the day you find out whether you got it right.