I've found the idea that people use their headphones with one ear in and one ear free absolutely preposterous and by some extension a mind glut or non commitment to a task at hand.   

If you must have one in, is the content consumed worthy of your attention? If not take it out, if so put both in even if it is background noise. If someone needs your attention have them come to you or be ready by not having them in.  

If it’s a matter of situational awareness why have one in and compromise 50% of your awareness in an environment that needs 100%.  Why not give an area that needs your attention what it needs. If not kick back (mentally) and enjoy the music.

There is a level of splitting attention that comes with this that people were simply not ready to take on. Either be one with your thoughts or throw on some tunes and drill down into a task or situation. 

I understand that this is not a popular opinion as many people will as stated above use one headphone to listen to music whilst doing a mundane task but still keeping an ear open. I simply say to you put both in and bust it out or be attentive for who you need to be attentive for.

Don’t half-ass your listening experience.  You paid good money for your headphones. Enjoy them.

As someone who was a sales rep at Best Buy, you best believe that I've seen my fair share of crappy "keebs".  To those in the custom mechanical keyboard community, these keyboards are better served as office carpeting rather than actually being typed on.

Now, I know the tides are shifting somewhat in this regard but this is a reminder post or an awareness type of post. Spend the good money on a good keyboard. I know they're expensive, but consider the following:

This is the primary way you interact with your desktop/laptop setup. Your main I/O device for getting online for doing anything from paying bills to sending dumb tweets. 

If you don't enjoy your input devices, by extension you will not like your device. Not so say you won't be satisfied with the performance of your machine, but your interaction with it will be compromised.

You already spent $1000+ on a computer, by all means you should splurge on the number one way you punch all you information into it.

Can go into this in a future article, but for now take the information and do what you will.

“A screen is a screen, why should I care?” I hear you ask. Needless to say I have a very strong opinion about monitors wether or not its getting attached to your setup is a completely different story. Of everything that you can spend money on its one of the arguably most important things you can spend on. The screen is the number 1 way you interact with the machine. Keyboards and mice are nice to have but a screen can make or break your interaction and opinion of the machine. Our eyes first make the the first impression on anything we interact with. By extension a screen being our portal to the operating system and applications that we use on a daily basis. I implore you to ensure that you love the screen you look at. If you love the screen you’ll likely love the machine regardless of performance. There’s a lot of technologies that can help with picking a monitor. HDR for a better viewing/gaming experience. VA panel for better black levels. IPS panels for better color reproduction. Full array lighting or OLED for near perfect or perfect black levels. All of these technologies can enhance and make your computing experience worthwhile and amazing. It could increase productivity or even draw you into a new hobby / creative outlet! Best part is you’ll have the nice monitor to make it happen.