More Mobile: First Steps (Premium)

This past week, I wrote about my latest attempt to move to a more mobile computing setup for both productivity and entertainment. This isn’t new, per se, in that I’m always testing new setups, and I often move from computer to computer over time, for review purposes and in general. But this time is also different in that I want to make a permanent change that will better align with my plans to sell our current home as soon as early 2022 and move around more frequently after that.

The problem is manyfold.

Like a lot of people, I’ve accumulated a lot of stuff, and as many have observed, this stuff tends to grow and grow until it fills whatever available space you have. That our current home is humongous is thus a problem, and as I’ve written elsewhere, we’re trying to get on top of that via an ongoing decluttering campaign.

But unlike a lot of people, I’ve been accumulating a lot of tech-related stuff as part of my career over the past few decades. And while I do occasionally get rid of the piles of aging electronics from time to time via “everything must go” events, donations, and the like, this particular stuff is even more problematic.

As important, my decades of experience using technology and writing about it have resulted in some well-established and, for me, efficient habits. This is the workflow issue, where my day-to-day computing setup in my home office does evolve, sure, but at a slower pace. For me to replace something in my existing setup, it has to be demonstrably better than what I’m already using.

And there’s the problem: I’ve been using a desktop PC of some kind at a desk of some kind for over 25 years. And while I’ve tried again and again to switch to a laptop-based setup, it’s just never stuck and for any number of reasons. I just find it more comfortable and efficient to use a desktop PC each day, and to switch to a laptop when I want to work from elsewhere in the house or need to travel. So, for me, a desktop PC is better. It’s the best, most efficient way for me to work.

So I need to get over that. Part of this transition will include an acceptance on my part that this will be the way things are going forward, not just while I’m on a work or personal trip, or swapping homes, or whatever. But all the time. The idea is that this setup can be torn down in minutes and replicated somewhere---anywhere---else just as quickly. And it’s a puzzle, sort of, with a lot of pieces.

My basic home office computing setup has to date included the PC itself, of course, a display, speakers, a keyboard and mouse, a podcasting microphone and associated hardware, and a webcam. Interestingly, much of that could be replaced by a laptop: as a bare minimum, I’d only need an external microphone of some kind. And sure, that can work in a pinch, or occasionally. But moving to that setup for good? No. It’s more complicated than that.

Most obviously, at least to me, is the wellbeing impact of...