Valhalla Island

Much of my life is taken thinking about and trying to achieve what I call the ultimate or perfect setup — the ideal arrangement and organisation of the things around me and the systems I use. The ultimate setup does not deal with imaginary amounts of money or technology that doesn’t yet exist, it’s realised solely with the resources available to you. Be it the items you already own or capital you’re willing to invest.

For example, if you have a wired keyboard you love, you’d like the wireless equivalent but can’t justify the cost, you already have the ultimate keyboard setup. If you can justify the cost and can afford the wireless equivalent but don’t own it, you’re a keyboard away from the ultimate setup.

Understand what I’m getting at?

It goes for anything, which items are placed on your desk, where they’re placed, the arrangement of furniture in a room, of paintings on a wall, the combination of audiovisual equipment, the organisation of files on your hard drive, the order of elements on a webpage, which clothes get hung up and which put in drawers, the items you leave in and out of your wallet, the wallet you use, everything you deal with, every system you use.

The wallet problem is one I’ve been dealing with for a while. I don’t like how thick and heavy my wallet is. I’ve taken everything I don’t consider essential out but it’s still too thick, so, in the pursuit of the perfect setup I’m considering a money clip with the most important cards — ATM and license and keeping change loose in my pocket. It has the advantage of a smaller profile but there’s more individual items to keep track of and I have to consciously remember my student, library or credit card if I anticipate needing them. Often the ultimate setup is about trying alternatives and making compromise.

My pursuit for the perfect setup comes from an extremely low tolerance for friction or just low tolerance in general. The bin in my room used to be away from my desk, when I needed to throw out rubbish several times a day, it wasn’t easy, I had to get up each time, so I moved the bin beside my desk. There’s many people that call this lazy behavior, “you can’t be bothered to get up to put your rubbish in the bin!?” they say when the opposite is true, not moving the bin to make it easier for yourself is lazy.

People that put up with discomfort or difficulty, even the slightest difficulty tend to also be the people that complain most about the difficulties. Fixing things to make it easier for yourself is always worth it.

Here’s an example of a potential ultimate setup that isn’t good value. Something’s happened to the lock in my car that means I have to turn the key 5 or 6 times to open it, it’s annoying and it’d be great if I didn’t have to do it. But the financial cost of getting new locks or the existing fixed isn’t worth the extra couple of seconds it takes to get into my car. So I’m comfortable with leaving it as is.

Moving furniture in your bedroom to make it easier to get around or more pleasant occupy is always good value — it’s free, doesn’t take long and makes a big difference. The small effort to keep my room tidy pays off 100 times over when I’m able to quickly find anything I need and lack the “this needs to be cleaned” burden.

My current computer setup is brilliant, it’s very close to the perfect setup. The second office area in my house has been recently vacated and I’d love to move my office equipment, including the computer out there to separate the place I work from the place I sleep. The problem is I also use this computer to watch movies, listen to music and wake me up.

The alarm clock can be replaced easily and Apple makes a product precisely for watching movies and listening to music from your computer — the Apple TV. My computer in the office with a HD LCD television and an Apple TV in my room would definitely be an ultimate setup. Deciding whether the large financial cost is worth it is needs to be deeply considered.

Even right now, I’m using a trial copy of Mars Edit after not feeling completely satisfied with TextMate’s blogging bundle or the WordPress post writing interface. So far it’s much better and the more I familiarise myself with MarsEdit the more it feels like it’s going to become another ultimate setup.