Laptop Set Up

How many tabs… all the tabs

I’m back already. I’m trying to get more thoughts down on my work flow while things are working out, before I become overloaded with other work and end up losing my rhythm. I am hoping to get to some more exciting topics soon, but who knows maybe these kinds of posts are helping some of you reading to see how I’m trying to make it work so that you can skip the struggle that I’ve been going through. It’d be great to hear that this could be helping other people work continuously and creatively and skip the set up that has taken me a while.

My laptop

I have the 2015 Mac Book Pro for now and hope to upgrade within the next year if business is good. I like this laptop for how user friendly it is and just that I grew up knowing how to operate apple products more so than other kinds. I’m not sure what I’ll get next but this was a great place for me to start. I have the 15” and I couldn’t imagine working on anything smaller. Often times I even plug my laptop in to another monitor or projector or TV to get a larger image. Editing video and photo, especially with clients looking over your shoulder, is something I would never want to do on a 13” screen. I already find myself leaning in at details when I’m editing and the 13” although may be more portable, would not be worth my money. This is all just personal preference and I’m not at the point yet where I feel like I can afford a laptop and a desktop, no matter how badly I want an IMac Pro. The biggest issue with me is also storage I will forever be willing to pay extra for as much storage as I can get. I have multiple external hard drives, but as far as pre-transfer or quick on the go saving I’d much rather have a larger storage than what I have on this which is in the 200GB range.

Tabs

My family always jokes that my mind has too many “Open Tabs” so it makes sense when I’m working I open as many as I feel like I can. I typically always open premiere pro and photo-shop together because I’ll make quick graphics in photoshop and want to throw them directly into premier pro. I would get distracted too easily if i had to wait for photoshop to open when I needed it. So when I open my laptop I instantly launch both of those if i’m editing video. If i’m editing photo I open both photoshop and Lightroom. I like the multitasking window setup a lot, especially if I have another monitor to look between. I also will always open finder and have two windows for finder up at all times. I rarely need to pop three open but occasionally I have if I’m moving files around. It helps me keep my spot and not have to keep clicking through my external hard drive files often. I also always have google chrome open as well and keep my website builder up. This is so unnecessary, but whenever I’m exporting I want to stay in the productive mode or else I’ll get up and walk away from my laptop. With my website builder open, I will be exporting a video or image and quickly touch up the website in some way.

In google chrome I typically have Pinterest, google docs, Squarespace website builder, and either https://www.etsy.com/shop/DylanKeithCrafted or a relevant research page open depending on what I’m working on. I love setting all this up before hand so that when i inevitably have to get there It’s a very quick transition.

Why I Care About Laptop Tabs & Windows

I have found I procrastinate easily when things load or when there are multiple steps to opening something before any work can even be done. Having everything opened and setup eases my mind that I will be able to just get right into the creative collaborative stuff. It’s like how having an organized desk with all the papers in order could help a professor just get into grading. Why would I want all of my tabs hidden where I have to find them as I go along. To many of you, there’s probably a flow you’ve found already but If you haven’t I recommend trying to open everything and then just let those load so once you’re in the zone you wont be taken out of it.