Mark Gilroy: 20 Years a Psychologist, Now I've Found a Creative Workspace That Keeps Me Inspired

“After spending 20 years working as a business psychologist, I needed a change.”

Mark in the conference

In a conference where Mark Gilroy delivered the opening and closing sessions, the host introduced Mark as "coach, consultant and content creator", which he rather liked.

Based in UK, Mark has 20+ years of experience in leadership, interpersonal dynamics, and psychometrics. He used to run a successful international psychometrics business. He travelled the world working with big teams, training HR teams on using personality tests.

"After spending 20 years working as a business psychologist, I was ready to make a change." Mark said to Vernal Team. After the pandemic, he experienced burnout and was ready to build a business on his own terms. "So now I create content in the tech and productivity niche, mainly on YouTube. I love spending my time doing that and I also mentor other Youtubers. It’s a relatively new professional identity for me, but I learn something new every day and I’m never alone in looking for creative solutions to the problems that other content creators experience."

Establishment of a Photography Studio

“My studio workspace has to be very flexible and adaptable, because I often move around furniture to film products, as well as record myself in setups that feel natural.”

Mark recently moved into a new office in York, UK with his collaborator, Sarah.

Sarah, referred to as a "Superstar photographer" in Mark's YouTube videos, has worked with Mark on many projects over the past few years, and they’ve become great friends.

Now, Mark and Sarah are sharing the studio workspace. Sometimes they attend meetings together, with Mark providing backup support for Sarah; and when some brand clients want both video and photography content, they team up to handle the project together.

Mark helps Sarah shoot her projects

Sarah photographs Mark and his family

As they started receiving more review products and having more visitors to their photography studio, their original space became insufficient. The new space is twice the size of the previous one and has larger windows that provide better natural light. They’re both working on setting up the new space, slowly but surely.

What’s the most important aspect of a workspace? Flexibility!

Mark and Sarah often build shooting setups within their studio, so everything in the workspace needs to be easy to move around in order to create different scenes and backgrounds. Lights, desks, and cabinets are all on wheels.

Key considerations when planning the layout of the workspace?

1. Lighting is essential. Since they shoot a lot of content, they need a variety of natural and artificial light sources. Around the photography zone in the workspace, they had to arrange plenty of options to control the light.

2. Making the most of the space. “Even though it's a larger space, we wanted to make the best use of all of the space that we kind of bought,” Mark said. So they tried several different desk placements for the two of them before settling on the area by the window. “And that was for light so that we can maximize the light that's pointing out the kind of shooting area. Yeah, and also I think Sarah was back keen to be looking out of the window, whereas I was happy to have my back to the window for video calls and online presentations.”

3. Storage and organization. Right now, there are still boxes and review items piled on the floor. They’re planning to bring in storage cabinets to keep everything in one single unit. They're also thinking about security—looking into lockable cabinets to ensure the safety of their equipment.

The Use of Vernal Products

“I've reached the age where back pain is real—I need a standing desk.”

Mark started using a Vernal standing desk about a year ago. After 20 years of office work, he realised his back could no longer handle long hours of sitting. He decided to give a standing desk a try to relieve the pain by alternating between sitting and standing while working. At first, he would only raise the desk during meetings, but now he stands much more frequently. He uses a Pomodoro timer, switching between sitting and standing at set intervals during the day, to coincide with bursts of work, with time to stretch and rest.

The happy news? Mark told the Vernal team that his back pain is now completely gone.

“A deeper desktop helps with video calls and demos, preventing my legs from being caught on camera when filming top-down video”

Mark has an Obsbot camera mounted on his desk for video calls with collaborators. When he tilts the camera to show products or gear on the desk, a shallow desktop would often reveal his legs in the frame—something that doesn’t look great when demoing a product.

That’s why Mark really appreciates Vernal’s deeper desktop design. It gives him more distance between the camera, screen, and desk surface.

“I didn’t pay much attention to the anti-collision feature at first—until my camera hit an obstacle, and the desk immediately stopped.”

Mark usually pushes his chair under the desk and lowers the desk until it touches the chair’s armrests. He never really thought much about the desk’s anti-collision function. But one day, while working with a top-down camera rig mounted on the desk, he forgot the camera was there and raised the desk to its highest position. As the desk was going up, it collided with the camera! Thankfully, the Vernal desk detected the resistance and instantly stopped moving. The camera wasn’t damaged.

“Here's some really interesting psychological research that suggests that if you're doing creative work, actually having a very messy desk can help you do that work. However, now I'm really interested in the moment about how you remove friction from the work that you have to do.”

When the Vernal team asked “whether having a clean and organized workspace helps with getting work done,” Mark, who has a background in psychology, shared an interesting psychological study with us: That's a really interesting question. It depends on what kind of work I'm doing. There's some really interesting psychological research that suggests that if you're doing creative work, actually having a very messy desk can help you do that work. It suggests that having that kind of mess and clutter, it almost gives your mind permission that you can think outside of that and think outside of the box and think at, think outside of normal sort of frames of reference.

For Mark personally, he prefers to keep things clean and tidy. “I suspect there are many things around me that I need, but even though I need them, I don’t want to see them,” he says. Right now, Mark is very interested in how to reduce friction in his workflow. He likes the drawer under the Vernal desk—even though it’s meant for a keyboard, he prefers to store all his lenses, batteries, and similar items in it. This way, everything he needs appears exactly when he needs it. He really enjoys this frictionless workspace.

Workspace is Not Only the Workspace

Mark has a young family. When the Vernal team asked if his family ever visits the workspace, he proudly showed us a picture of his daughter.

Mark and his daughter in his workspace

Talking about his colleague Sarah, Mark said their work is like “going fishing when you work with a brand—we have to fish out of their brains what they want it to look like, because often they can’t describe it.” Mark and Sarah have been collaborating continuously, and he is very confident about the work they do together.

For Mark, the workspace is more than just a place to work. He used to work from home or coffee shops, but after Sarah found a mini studio downtown, they started coworking. Now, they’ve moved to a larger, brighter studio.

Leaving behind his 20-year professional identity, Mark has become a content creator, and in his own workspace, he is beginning to find his true self.