Zack Davenport Desk Setup — Workspaces #536

Zack Davenport is a founding product and brand designer who's been in the biz for over 15 years.

He's currently Senior Design Director at Brilliant.org where he oversees the design of Koji, Brilliant's algebra and coding tutor. Zack is a Rive ambassador and has previously led design at Vine, Vimeo, Foursquare, and more.

In his free time he builds Flipphone.co and other vibe-coded apps.

He is a dad of three and lives with his family up just north of NYC.

Follow Zack on Twitter (X).

What is the most recent item that you've added to your workspace?

I just recently framed a Jalen Brunson New Yorker cover. Watching the series along with the rest of New York was an incredible experience so I wanted to make sure to document it.

A corner of Zack Davenport's setup with a framed yellow "The Shining" poster above a monitor riser holding plants, a white dome lamp, an orange ball lamp, and a MacBook showing a redwood-forest wallpaper.

What is one change you'd like to make to your current workspace?

My home office is directly next to our kid's playroom so it gets pretty loud sometimes, especially once school gets out.

Zack Davenport's standing desk desk by a window with an Apple keyboard, an iPad, a microphone, and a monitor showing a redwood forest, beneath a large red, white, and blue wavy op-art poster.

Walk us through your morning routine—what’s the first thing you do at your desk?

My morning starts off getting the kids ready and out the door for school. Once the kids are off to school, I tend to enjoy breakfast at my desk while catching up on Slack and getting my bearings ready for the day. I use an app called Things to plan out my daily priorities so I usually spend some time reviewing that.

Brilliant is West Coast-based so that generally means my East Coast mornings are pretty quiet which is great because it allows me to get some quality focus time before any meetings. Mornings are also when I tend to do life-ops stuff like errands or water plants if needed.

White cube shelves packed with books and design objects beside leaning gig and art posters, snake plants, and a peach-painted alcove, over a black-and-white checkerboard rug.

What’s one productivity trick that actually works for you?

I have pretty severe ADHD so I've tried every productivity trick out there but only a few have stuck.

One that I use daily is a trick called "resetting the room", which I read about in the book Atomic Habits. I find it super distracting if I open my office and the first thing I see is something out of place... it immediately takes my focus off what I had originally come into the room in the first place. So at the end of every work day, I try to put items back in their proper location so the next day the room is already set up for optimum focus. I even use a label maker to mark where items go so it becomes second nature to put things back 😅

A white door topped by a glowing yellow "Sunnyside" neon sign, flanked by a sticker-covered vision board, a tall dracaena in a mid-century planter, and a leather desk chair.

What’s the most underrated app or tool you use every day?

I'm totally biased but I've been using my app FlipPhone every day for the past 200+ days as a way to cut down my screen time.

The app simply times how long your phone is turned face down and rewards you the longer you go without using my phone. Once you flip your phone back over the timer stops and you can add details like notes and tags to document the session.

The more I've used it, the more it's evolved into a journaling app of all the times away from my phone... its become pretty special to me.