The Writing Desk

Working offline doesn’t only increase our efficiency at creative tasks like freewriting by making us more mindful—it’s also more enjoyable.

When I first noticed how fun it was to draft my daily writings in a notebook, I decided I needed to have two desks: one for my laptop monitor, and another one for my Kindle and my pen.   

I move my office chair from one desk to another depending on the nature of my activity at the moment, and it works perfectly fine to trick my brain into switching between projects without much cognitive resistance.

Quite the contrary in fact: the brain doesn’t tire like a muscle, it only craves change. And that’s what I offer it by diversifying the way I use my senses.

There is nothing quite like traces of graphite on a page, the feeling of my wrist resting on a sheet of paper, and the dim light of the desk lamp shining on the whole scene.

Being able to seamlessly switch from words to drawings is also quite underrated. On a computer, writing and drawing are two distinct operations—you do one or the other depending on the limits of the medium. On paper, everything is drawing. Scribbling down letters, schemas, formulas, and sketches is done the same way—by filling in the void with a pen.

I tend to use this desk at the end of the day when I’m done with my main tasks. I just sit there comfortably in silence, read some chapters of a book on my Kindle, and write down some words.