I just finished watching a really great presentation from Austin Kleon titled “How to Keep Going.” You should absolutely watch it, especially if you work in a creative profession. Even if you don’t, still check it out.

Austin outlines 10 ideas to help you keep your creative projects going, which I really appreciate (especially at this time in my life) because its something I find myself really challenged with the days. Whether it’s the aftermath of the election, scandals, family health issues or the potential for war, there are many days where I don’t even want to get out of bed, much less be creative. It’s almost like starting at negative.

That’s why I loved this one idea in the video to create a bliss station.

As it turns out, I already have my own bliss station, although I didn’t call it that, nor did I necessarily identify it in those terms. It’s my sanctuary, or my special place to just be me. To work and explore without distraction, and to have all of my things just where and how I like them to be.

I’d imagine many people have a spot like this. They might call it a home office, a studio or even a man-cave. I’ve used all of those names before, but i think i’ll call it a bliss station now.

So what is my bliss station, what does it look like and what makes it special to me?

First, it has all of the tools of my trade.

I’ve got two nice computers, an iMac and a PC. They’re showing their age, but they’re faithful. Between them, I can run any software I want, I can test designs in different browsers across different operating systems, or can play any game that I want (the primary reason for having the PC).

I control both of the computers with a single keyboard and mouse through the use of a KVM switch mounted under the desk.

My desk came from IKEA. I’ve daydreamed about getting a standing desk, but have always found more important things to invest in. But this desk is perfect for me. It’s black, its flat and it fits nicely into the corner of the room. A mesh compartment under it keeps my cables from getting tangled.

I have tons of storage for audio, video and photos through the use of three external hard drives. They’re all 3TB drives, the internal drive in both the PC and the Mac is 1TB, and I also carry with me a 1TB LaCie portable drive. This is really helpful because I’m a packrat and hate to delete things unless I have to.

One of the aspects to this space which I’m most proud of are the mounted displays on the wall. I’ve got two of them, one in landscape and one in portrait. I call the portrait-oriented display “picture wall” and use it to display all kinds of stuff. Originally, I wanted to have a big display like this turned sideways to display movie posters. That actually works well, but what is even more interesting is display web sites, social feeds, sports scores or just any other type of dynamic data.

The picture wall is driven by an old Mac mini which is tucked away behind it. I can connect to this display using a wireless apple keyboard / mouse, as well as remote desktop. One day i’d love to upgrade this particular computer, as it chugs on any type of video (its literally an 8 or 9 year old computer) after all.

I also have started to build out my own sound booth. Still have quite a bit of work to do here as it sounds terrible right now. It’s really, really quiet in there and just doesn’t sound alive enough for me to record in there. So in the meantime, I’ve placed a nice comfortable, oversized pillow that was on sale at Pier 1 Imports. It’s a nice place to sit and watch tv, a quiet place for my daily meditation or a dog bed for Sherman.

I’ve told you about some of the things in this space, but what makes it special to me? Really, it was the whole process of building it out. From painting it, to getting artwork framed, to replacing the floor and hanging the displays. I had a very specific look and feel in mind for  my perfect creative space and I was able to actually replicate it pretty much exactly. When it all came together, I really felt like I brought something out of my imagination into the real world, which is really what creation is all about.

My bliss station (aka my studio, as I am used to calling it) has a no argument / no barking / no anything negative policy. Only happy thoughts, cool tunes and work happens in this space. And that makes it a place that I like to spend almost all of my time in working.