Over (cough a lot of cough) years of experience and experiment, the guys have fairily well-developed opinions on what you need, and don’t, for a really productive, ergonomic, and enjoyable office setup (whether home or otherwise).
If you’re just getting started, looking for a refresh, or worried you might be missing out, consider this the non-authoritative absolutely authoritative guide on what’s most important and what to look for. This guide won’t explain everything in depth, but you can use this as a jumping off point for your own homework and experimentation. Also included are references to specific* products the guys like.
Ergonomics First
The single most important time & money you should spend on your office is ensuring that your body mechanics are healthy, comfortable, and sustainable.
[A Serious] Chair
Without caveat or hesitation, item 1A on your list should be a high quality, fully-adjustable, mesh-back-and-bottom, office chair. This can impact not just joint strain, but also productivity and focus.
Not a cheap pleather thing for $79 from Staples, not a “gaming” chair or a folding chair or a bean bag or a barkalounger. Ideally you want your joints at the “proper” 90° angles, your feet flat on the floor, and proper lumbar support when you’re sitting fully back in the seat - although some argue a better posture is to sit in the middle of the seat, without your back in contact with the chair. We’re not chiropractors, so you do you.
Having your chair fully adjustable allows you to hone in on the exactly correct mechanics for your body/desk/space. The mesh aspect is also pretty important. It’s gross but let’s be real, remaining seated for long periods of time is a recipe for heat buildup and sweat (esp. in warmer climates or seasons) and mesh allows for meaningful airflow and cooling.
To a large degree, you really will get what you pay for on this one. Sacrifice all else on this list if it means getting this right. The guys are currently have their butts in:
The Aeron by Herman Miller
Monitor height
The very next most important thing you can do, having secured proper seating, is ensure that your monitor(s) are at the correct height for your chair & body.
The very instant you have yourself a proper chair, you should know within an error margin of about 1" where your eye level rests when seated. That’s precisely the [vertical] spot you want the center of your monitor. Get an adjustable montior stand/arm, or a wall mount, or a desk riser, or hell even a stack of books if necessary. You do NOT want to be looking up, down, or sideways at your primary display. It’s a recipe for eye strain, neck/shoulder/back issues, tension headaches, and a host of other annoyances. Most of the time, you should be looking exactly neutrally forward.
Pro-top: If you’re like most people, the right height for your monitor is likely a lot higher than you might think.
The guys have their monitors on:
A generic VESA wall mount from Amazon
Mechanical keyboard
A mechanical keyboard is an absolute must-have. Full stop.
It’s about durability, key travel & resistance, tactile feedback, and if you’re into it (and somewhere it’ll be tolerated, depending on your preference) the sound. This is a budget-scalable upgrade that can make an immediate difference in your typing experience, and possibly even help mitigate certain repetitive strain injuries (RSI) over time.
You don’t need to shell out hundreds on some bragging-rights-optimized, split, ortholinear, QMK-programmable keeb, but expect to spend about $80 on the low end for something decent enough. The guys type on:
The Moonlander Mk1 by ZSA
Mouse (that fits your hand)
There are 3 styles of mouse grip: palm, claw, and fingertip. You should know which you are, and buy a mouse that fits your style.
Like the keyboard, this is budget-scalable, and will immediately make a difference in your human-computer interaction (HCI). The guys are generally big fans of gaming mice due to their flexibility, ergonomics, and additional programmable buttons. The guys click with:
The Logitech G502 Lightspeed
Presentation Second
Once you have your ergonomics sorted, you can start to think about the rest of your setup. This is where things start to get more personal, stylistic, and shift from “must-have” to “nice-to-have.”
Clean up your background
This trips a lot of folks up. Contrary to popular misconception, you do NOT need to have a perfectly arranged, interior designed, Instagrammable background. All you need to do here is ensure it’s reasonably tidy. If you’re in a shared office, that’s probably already taken care of for you and you have less control over it anyway. If you’re working from home however, it just means not having trash, unfolded laundry, old dishes, dirty diapers, blood smears, etc. clearly visible.
When you’re working from home, everyone knows it. That’s where you live, it’s not a museum. The thing to remember here is that no one cares about your background as much as you do so while you stress about it, keep yourself from spiraling by acknowledging that if it’s not an active FEMA zone, you’re good to go.
Anything you want to do beyond that — arranging photos, bookshelves, decorations, plants, etc. — is really just overachieving. And, ultimately, you can just blur it if you have to. The guys don’t recommend extensive use of virtual backgrounds unless it’s part of schtick, because they get you into the uncanny valley and can be pretty distracting… but again, you do you.
Discrete microphone
Ever been in a conference call with some exec using a Jabra headset from 2005 and it’s so hard to understand what they’re saying you can’t process the ideas because you’re so focused on parsing the barely intelligible word-shaped sounds? Yeah. It sucks.
A simple and deceptively useful upgrade is a Better™ microphone. You’re likely using A) your laptop mic or B) a pair of earbuds. Those DO the job, but they never sound great. Ambient & background noise is squelched inconsistently and they don’t pick up or transmit your specfic voice tones super faithfully.
Spending a bit on a simple dedicated USB microphone can make a world of difference in your virtual presence during meetings. You don’t need to go full radio DJ with boom arms and pop filters and make having special audio gear your entire personality - something like a Yeti Snowball or Razer Seiren sitting on your desk will go a long way to ensuring you are heard loudly and clearly in your unique voice.
That said, Frank argues you SHOULD let people see the gear you’re using. It’s a conversation starter, it can be a unique/memorable part of your personal brand, and it’s a signal that you take hearing & being heard seriously. The guys both speak into the:
The Shur SM7b
However, honorable mention goes to the mic the guys both used for years previously:
The (formerly Blue, now Logitech) Yeti
Upgraded webcam
This one is pretty simple and straightforward. If you have a laptop the built-in webcam is likely only 720p, and that’s on a very small form factor with limited capabilities. If you’re using a desktop you may already have a discrete webcam.
The guys recommend at least 1080p (4k if you feel like splurging). Mount it on top of or below your monitor, centered, and place your virtual meeting software on screen as close to the camera lens as possible, so that when you are looking at the other participants, they feel like you’re looking directly at them as well. The guys are seen through:
The Elgato Facecam Pro
Lighting
Quality of life upgrades
Monitor real estate
Speakers and/or headphones
ACTUAL green screens?
* Please note that, like everything else the guys do, none of this is sponsored†.
† Not because they don’t want the money, but because no one has started paying† them yet for their clearly awesome opinions.
‡ But they totally, totally should.