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Jun 11, 2023

The equipment and hardware I’m using to grow my business

Member-only story Simon Theakston Follow ILLUMINATION -- Share I recently wrote an article outlining the (mostly free) software stack that I’m using to grow my business. This article is focused on the

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Simon Theakston

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I recently wrote an article outlining the (mostly free) software stack that I’m using to grow my business.

This article is focused on the hardware that I’m using, so let’s jump straight in.

My main desk was purchased in a Black Friday deal in 2022. The desk comes with a push-button remote which allows the height to be adjusted manually or to pre-set definitions. The top of the desk is essentially a whiteboard which allows me to brainstorm notes and ideas in an analog method for those times when digital notes are not suitable.

More info: Herman Miller

I do most of my work sitting at my desk using an M2 Mac Mini. I don’t produce any audio and edit very little video so the Apple Studio was overkill — although that doesn’t mean I wasn’t tempted by it for a few hours! Thankfully, reality prevailed and I saved myself the best part of £1,000 by going with a Mac Mini … and I love it.

The Mac Mini doesn’t allow upgrades at a later date, so I upgraded things slightly, pushing the HD up to 1TB and the memory up to 24GB. In hindsight, I probably didn’t need all that memory, although the extra HD space was definitely a requirement. I did think about getting an external hard drive given that Apple’s extra storage space is notoriously expensive but ultimately I plan on the machine lasting me several years and I wanted everything in one place.

More info: Apple

I’m on a three-year phone cycle — two if there’s a killer feature that I think will be helpful to me. My current phone is the iPhone Pro 15 which I don’t use a whole lot throughout the day.

During office hours, the phone will switch to a Phone Focus mode which will limit the people who can get in touch with me. Despite that, though, most communication happens on the Mac Mini (through things like Slack or WhatsApp), but the introduction of Standby on iOS17 has meant that I’m using it as a time check — both of the clock of any timers that I have running.

More Info: Apple