A quiet chat in a Chiang Mai cafe that changed my work setup

I was working from a corner table at Ristr8to last month, and this guy named Leo saw my giant laptop and portable monitor. He leaned over and said, 'You carry all that? I've been on the road for 3 years and my whole office fits in a 22-liter pack.' He showed me his single 14-inch laptop and explained his whole 'one screen, deep focus' method. Has anyone else made a big shift to LESS gear and found it actually helped?

3 comments

3 Comments

valwest1mo ago

Oh man, that Leo guy is right. I spent years lugging around a 17-inch laptop and a backpack full of cables and external drives until my shoulder gave out one day in a hostel in Lisbon. Now I just use an old ThinkPad and a phone hotspot, and somehow I get more done because I'm not always fussing with gear.

craig.parker2mo ago

That used to sound crazy, but now I get it.

-1

sethc122mo ago

Actually, the original idea came from a 2012 paper by Dr. Chen, @craig.parker. It wasn't totally crazy back then, just really hard to test. The new data from the last two years is what finally made it click for most people. It's less about the idea changing and more about us finally having the proof. The old models were missing a key piece of the puzzle. Now it seems obvious, but that's only because the science caught up.