Does anyone just up and move their desktop or has anyone ever had reason to do so?

[bisous]

Pardon my frustration this fine Saturday morning. My DH is driving me nuts. Waiting for him to help me with the kids is making my frustration ooze out of my ears. The situation is that my work station is in our living room. Prior to COVID it served as the sole family computer. Now that we're distant learning, I have my two youngest in here with me on their zoom meetings M-F from about 8 to noon. This works as they are pretty engaged but I can immediately help them if they need something. So I definitely want to mostly keep it here.

Right now I'm trying SO hard to work with numbers for an upcoming audit and I'm ALMOST done and the craziness of life is up on top of me. I need to wait for DH to take them somewhere but his concept of time does NOT match mine. (AKA, his "I'll take them somewhere tomorrow morning so you can work in peace" translates to it is 11:04 and they are still crowding around my desk nagging me...) True, it is difficult to take the kids anywhere right now. But with this weather and with crowds the park is much better in the early morning. GRRRRR.

I would love at these times to work in my room with a door that locks.

But I need a giant monitor because I'm comparing multiple spreadsheets.

SO, has anyone here regularly just up and moved their DESKTOP computer from one room to another fairly regularly? DH has a setup where (pre-COVID) he has a really nice laptop that plugs into a Cintiq that he has at work and similar setup at home. I don't know that I want to put money into buying a laptop and an additional monitor at this time though. Maybe I'm imagining a CART? Or I don't know what...

Looking for creative solutions.

Because right now I'm just silently growling at everyone and that is NOT effective...

[gymnbomb]

I haven't moved MY desktop computer on a regular basis, but when I was in high school and was an editor on the school newspaper it was super common for editors to unplug a school desktop computer/monitor/mouse/keyboard and take it home for a night or a weekend to work on and bring it back and set it up before school the next day. It was not a big deal. And these were 16-18 year olds throwing them in the back seat of their beater cars!! I wouldn't want to do it every day, but I would move it for the weekend a couple of times a month without thinking twice about it if it helped me get stuff done.

[Kestrel]

We have an old, crappy monitor in the garage on the workbench. We sometimes move the desktop in there to watch youtube and such when we need to refer to it during a project.

I will say that we use a wireless mouse and wireless keyboard; it makes that many less cords involved in the move. But we can move and have it set up in less that 15 minutes.

Alternatively, can you print your spreadsheets and work from hard copy in another room?

And, of course, your DH needs to parent - weather in the house or out - so you can get done. Happy meals for lunch today?

[niccig]

Or set up a rule when they can/can’t bother you. Mine is -if headphones are on, I’m still working. And I will wear them even if I’m not listening to something, but trying to concentrate.

I’m also in the living room, which is fine for the school day. I’m still working after DS is finished, either I have a meeting, talking with a colleague or doing paperwork or prep for the next day. DS will come hang out on the sofa. He wants to share funny memes, he’s bored after day of school. DH will come out when he can have a break and they’ll put the TV on and want to talk to me. I’m not finished with work yet!!!

So that’s when I put in place the headphones rule


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[ahisma]

I haven't moved MY desktop computer on a regular basis, but when I was in high school and was an editor on the school newspaper it was super common for editors to unplug a school desktop computer/monitor/mouse/keyboard and take it home for a night or a weekend to work on and bring it back and set it up before school the next day. It was not a big deal. And these were 16-18 year olds throwing them in the back seat of their beater cars!! I wouldn't want to do it every day, but I would move it for the weekend a couple of times a month without thinking twice about it if it helped me get stuff done.

My dad worked for a newspaper in the late 80s / early 90s and used to bring his computer home on the weekends in a bag. We thought it was soooo cool.

[wendibird22]

I WFH 3 days a week. I put a desk in my master bedroom and bought a 2nd monitor my work laptop hooks up to. If the bedroom door is Leo I can be interrupted. If it’s closed I cannot. I ended up buying a nicer desk but when the pandemic first started my desk was a folding table and a chair from the dining room.


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[Liziz]

I don't have a desktop, so no experience on that point. I do, however, have children that love to hover around me when I'm trying to concentrate. (But in all seriousness, my computer and workspace are in the very open kitchen, and even though I *can* move it, it's not convenient, so I do get where you're coming from...)

Honestly, in situations like this, I tell my kids that I need "X" amount of time to focus without interruptions, then tell them they can go play in their rooms or they can go outside. If they interrupt me or start fighting (basically, if they cause me to need to stop focusing on what I need to get done) then I kick them outside and lock them out until I'm finished (we have a safe, fenced backyard). I've been doing it for long enough and they've been locked out enough times to know I mean it, so it usually gets me the time to focus that I need!

[dogmom]

Relocated the desk top permanently to a better place with a door. Get a small laptop, like a chrome book for the kids. Check to see if the school has any if purchasing a second options is a strain. Depending on how they are doing school and iPad with a blue tooth keyboard might be enough. (Certainly enough for basically Zoom meeting)

[essnce629]

Relocated the desk top permanently to a better place with a door. Get a small laptop, like a chrome book for the kids. Check to see if the school has any if purchasing a second options is a strain. Depending on how they are doing school and iPad with a blue tooth keyboard might be enough. (Certainly enough for basically Zoom meeting)

Yes, can you just move the desktop to you bedroom? Once my mom moved in we played musical desks in our house and moved the large office/guest room desk into our master bedroom for DH and moved our small more decorative master bedroom desk to my mom's room. And yes, definitely ask your kids' schools if they have any extra laptops to give out. We technically didn't "need" any school computers, as DS1 has a desktop and DS2 could use my chromebook, but both schools were offering so we got a school laptop for both of them. Having extra computers has come in handy for when Zoom wasn't working on one computer and we had to switch mid-class (this happened this week). Both schools gave out MacBooks.

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[KrisM]

Years ago at work we had to move one desktop around to wherever we needed it for testing. It was on a cart and we had it plugged into an uninterruptible power supply so we didn't need to shut it down to move it.

Not ideal and I'm not sure I'd want to do it at home, but you could.

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