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My Home Office Setup (2026)

2025-09-17 · Tech review, setup or bag tour · Ali · recording, 31:56 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Tools, apps and tech (also: YouTube, writing online and creators, Goals, purpose and life design) · mode: Demonstration and walkthrough · tags: His own products discussed, Sponsor segment present, Family

Ali tours his Hong Kong home office and studio: an Oakywood standing desk with the monitor set below eye level, an Elgato Teleprompter he uses to see himself while filming, an overhead rig for drawing diagrams in teaching sessions, and desk items chosen because they look cute.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Intro to the latest productivity desk setup tour

00:00:51 — Oakywood desk, Anthros chair, Mac mini, Studio Display below eye level, Espresso display for workshops

  • ★★ Ali's desk is a solid-oak standing desk that Oakywood sent him about a year ago, and he has been loving it. — 00:00:51
  • ★★ Ali likes a very wide desk but wishes his were deeper; he had it made to custom dimensions to fit his room and filming setup because rooms in Hong Kong are tiny. — 00:00:51 · Hong Kong
  • ★★ Because Herman Miller chairs were a nightmare to get in Hong Kong, Ali bought an Anthros chair after reviews said it was very good for posture. — 00:01:20 · Hong Kong
  • ★★ Ali prefers the Herman Miller Embody and Sail chairs he had in the past to his Anthros chair. — 00:01:49
  • ★ Ali's setup runs on an M2 Pro Mac mini connected to an Apple Studio Display. — 00:01:49
  • ★★★ Ali sets his Studio Display on an Ergotron arm below eye level, where a monitor normally goes, so it blocks his window view less; he now likes that his eyes look down and the screen no longer fills his field of vision. — 00:02:18
  • ★★ Ali's second screen is a thin, portable Espresso display that he travelled with as a digital nomad, since an external display for a laptop is always nice. — 00:03:22
  • ★★ For the live online workshops of his Lifestyle Business Academy and YouTuber Academy, Ali finds two monitors very useful: one for the Zoom chat, one for his presentation. — 00:03:22 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy, Zoom

00:04:05 — Riverside sponsor segment

00:05:54 — Speakers, dock, mouse, keyboard, Stream Deck, Ugmonk analog tools, Wave Neo microphone, Sony headphones

  • ★★ Ali loves his Logitech MX Master 3S mouse, but he thinks he is getting repetitive strain injury in his wrist and may switch back to the Logitech Lift. (hedged) — 00:06:02
  • ★★ Ali is testing the NuPhy Halo75 keyboard; he often tries different keyboards to get a feel for them and their switches. — 00:06:31
  • ★★ Ali uses his Elgato Stream Deck to switch screens in OBS during live sessions, though it is buggy at the moment; he got it mostly because it looks good. — 00:06:31
  • ★★★ Ali keeps track of everything he needs to do in Things 3, but puts what he will actually do today on his Ugmonk Analog card, because crossing things off by hand is very nice. — 00:07:53 · Things 3
  • ★★ Ali finds Ugmonk's analog products very expensive and overpriced for what they are, but likes them because they are nicely designed and sturdy. — 00:08:59
  • ★★ Ali often plans videos and course lessons on Ugmonk's cards, because he can move the pieces of paper around. — 00:09:26
  • ★★ Ali loves his Elgato Wave Neo microphone: it is not as good as fancier microphones such as the Shure SM7B, but he thinks it looks really cute. — 00:09:56
  • ★★ Ali calls Lightmode, the keyboard brand his team tried to start and named after his liking for light mode, a failed brand that did not really work out. — 00:09:56
  • ★★★ Ali often buys things for his desk because they look cute, and thinks there is value, even for people who are not YouTubers, in having things on your desk that you think look cute. — 00:10:32
  • ★★ Ali would rather take a 10% drop in audio quality for a microphone that looks cute. (overstated) — 00:10:32
  • ★★ Ali mainly uses his Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones for background music on Zoom calls, or to concentrate when there is drilling in the apartment. — 00:11:19 · Zoom
  • ★★ Ali plays Lord of the Rings Shire music in his headphones on Zoom calls, which the other person cannot hear, and says it makes every call sound more epic and adventurous. — 00:11:19 · Zoom

00:11:58 — The Elgato Teleprompter as a second display to see yourself while filming

  • ★★ Ali finds the Elgato Teleprompter so good, since it works as a second display he can drag any page such as Notion onto, that he has bought several; it is not sponsored. — 00:12:27 · Notion
  • ★★★ Ali mostly uses the Elgato Teleprompter as a monitor that shows him himself while he talks into the lens, which makes filming videos much nicer and more comfortable. — 00:14:01

00:14:59 — Free quarterly reflection workshop on 20 September 2025

00:15:38 — Standing desk mode, teaching standing up, the treadmill

  • ★★ For workshops with his Lifestyle Business Academy and YouTuber Academy students, Ali much prefers to stand at his standing desk, and finds himself much more energised. — 00:16:03 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy
  • ★★ Ali sometimes puts a treadmill under his standing desk, but it is so large and heavy that he rarely uses it, though he says he really should. — 00:16:32
  • ★★ Ali loves standing desks and has used them since about 2018. (hedged) — 00:16:32

00:16:54 — Cameras, capture cables, Manfrotto Autopole and the overhead rig for drawing diagrams

  • ★★ Ali's Elgato Cam Links kept breaking after a few months, five or six of them, so he now uses a generic HDMI capture cable from Amazon. (hedged) — 00:17:23 · Amazon
  • ★★ Ali's cameras hang on Manfrotto Autopoles, which stay up by tension between floor and ceiling with no screws, suiting his rented flat. — 00:17:52
  • ★★ Ali's diagram of how to make $100,000: sell something for $100,000 to one person, $10,000 to 10 people, and so on down to $1 to 100,000 people; some of these pricing models are easier than others. — 00:19:20
  • ★★ Ali uses his overhead camera rig to draw a diagram when a course student asks a question on Zoom, which blows people's minds since few have an overhead rig on a call. — 00:19:49 · Zoom
  • ★★ Ali's team has a new offer that helps people build a $100,000-a-year lifestyle business in under 12 months, guaranteed. — 00:20:18

00:21:03 — Key light, the dream of separate work and filming desks, the Sparkle Studios office search

  • ★★ As a YouTuber you need a key light, Ali says, and he has yet to find one that does not look like an eyesore. — 00:21:03
  • ★★ Ali's key light, the Amaran F22x, is a very good light that folds up so he can pack it in a suitcase to film when travelling. — 00:21:03
  • ★★ Ali would like a clean, minimal desk, but having a desk full of filming gear comes with the job of a YouTuber that he has chosen. — 00:22:06
  • ★★★ Sparkle Studios, the family app business Ali started with his wife, has two apps out, VoicePal and Momentum, and is looking for an office. — 00:22:06 · Izzy Sealey, VoicePal
  • ★★ Ali's dream for the Sparkle Studios office is two desks: a vibey one without filming gear, and a separate filming desk he uses only to film. — 00:22:35
  • ★★ Ali puts a lot of thought into his studio background: much of what is in the room is chosen to show up in the main camera shot, and the storage is placed to stay out of it. — 00:23:27

00:23:56 — The rest of the room: storage, yoga mat, bookshelf, Harry Potter notebooks, Displate posters, spare cameras, guitar, rug

  • ★★ Ali keeps a yoga mat on his office floor because he is trying to improve his posture, and stretches on it when he gets hip pain. — 00:24:16
  • ★★ Ali calls Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series one of his favourite series of all time. — 00:25:22 · Mistborn, Brandon Sanderson
  • ★★ Ali is reading David Whyte's Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity in a physical copy, because the book is not available on Kindle. — 00:25:22 · Kindle, Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★ Ali calls Oliver Burkeman's Meditations for Mortals a very, very good book, and has highlighted a lot in it. — 00:25:48
  • ★★ Ali recommends Chris Ducker's The Long-Haul Leader as very good on building a sustainable business without burning out. — 00:25:48
  • ★★ Ali listens to Peter Attia's Outlive on Audible, because the book is very big and annoying to read but very easy to listen to. — 00:26:17 · Audible, Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★ Ali plans his YouTube videos in one of his Harry Potter notebooks, often in a coffee shop. — 00:26:17 · Harry Potter (book series)
  • ★★ Ali's Expecto Patronum notebook is for his courses and products: app designs, flowcharts for the Lifestyle Business Academy, and ways to explain frameworks. — 00:26:49
  • ★★ Ali keeps separate Harry Potter-themed Moleskine notebooks for different parts of his work and life. — 00:27:19 · Harry Potter (book series)
  • ★★ Ali uses his Lumos notebook, a gift from two former team members, as a general business and life journal. — 00:27:19
  • ★★ Ali likes Displate's metal posters, which hang on a magnet stuck to the wall, for a rented home where you do not want to hammer into the walls. — 00:27:19
  • ★★ Displate posters are matte, Ali notes, so unlike a glossy poster they do not reflect the key light in the background of his shot. — 00:27:49
  • ★★ Alex Hormozi's $100M Money Models is on Ali's shelf, and he says he needs to read it. — 00:28:19 · Alex Hormozi
  • ★★ Ali's million-subscriber YouTube plaque stands behind a snake plant; he wants to hang it but his flat is rented. — 00:28:19
  • ★★ Ali keeps a Fujifilm X100VI to take out and about, and a spare Sony FX3 for podcasts, which need several camera angles. — 00:28:59
  • ★★ When Ali is procrastinating from filming YouTube videos, he often plays the guitar, which helps energise him. — 00:29:28
  • ★★ Ali's office rug, a Blue-Eyes White Dragon rug, was a birthday present from his brother about two years ago. — 00:29:28 · Taimur Abdaal
  • ★★ Ali says he will do a tour of what is on his bookshelf at some point if viewers are interested. (hedged) — 00:30:04

00:30:32 — The Big Ass Calendar for planning the year, wrap-up

  • ★★ Ali has just installed the Big Ass Calendar, which he thinks was created by Jesse Itzler, whose content he likes; he also keeps a year-at-a-glance calendar in a Google Sheet. (hedged) — 00:30:32 · Google Sheets
  • ★★★ Ali and his wife plan to block out their year on the 12-month wall calendar, holidays, team offsites, masterminds and visits to Australia and Pakistan, so they can see it all at a glance. (hedged) — 00:31:00 · Izzy Sealey, Pakistan

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Elgato Prompter

Also: People: Alex Hormozi · Brandon Sanderson · Charlie Munger · Chris Ducker · David Whyte · Izzy Sealey · Jesse Itzler · Oliver Burkeman · Peter Attia · Peter McKinnon · Taimur Abdaal

Projects: Ali's tech, keyboards and bags product brand · Lifestyle Business Academy · Part-Time YouTuber Academy

Works: $100M Money Models · $100M Offers · Crossing the Unknown Sea · Feel-Good Productivity (book) · Harry Potter (book series) · Meditations for Mortals · Mistborn · Outlive · The Long-Haul Leader · The Lord of the Rings

Organizations: Anthros · Displate · Ergotron · Herman Miller · Moleskine · Muji · NuPhy · Oakywood · Sparkle Studios · Ugmonk

Concepts: digital nomad · posture · year at a glance · yoga

Places: Australia · Hong Kong · Pakistan

Products: Amaran F22x · Audible · Big Ass Calendar · CalDigit Thunderbolt Dock · Elgato Cam Link 4K · Elgato Wave Neo · Espresso Display · Fujifilm X100VI · Google Sheets · Herman Miller Embody · Herman Miller Sail · Kanto YU2 · Kindle · Logitech Lift · Logitech MX Master · Mac mini · Manfrotto Auto Pole · Momentum · Notion · OBS · Rode PSA1 · Sennheiser MKH416 · Shure SM7B · Sony A7C · Sony A7S III · Sony FX3 · Sony WH-1000XM5 · Stream Deck · Studio Display · Things 3 · Ugmonk Analog · VoicePal · Zoom

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