I’m standing at my desk again, and also have a use for my physical media and books again. You won’t prop up a monitor on top of two dozen smartphones..
I’m standing at my desk again, and also have a use for my physical media and books again. You won’t prop up a monitor on top of two dozen smartphones..
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It looks as if you might have the same discontinued Ikea desk as me – same color, same indent at the front.
Believe it or not, I can actually roll mine back over a modified treadmill that allows me to walk while I work – the crazy hours I’m stuck working on this computer, I would probably be dead by now if I hadn’t work out some way to get my blood moving.
That desk is something we bought in Argos I think. No Ikea close to Cork and it didn’t even exist in Ireland when I bought it! 🙂
Can you concentrate on a difficult task while walking?
I’ve get a few aches and pains from time to time (slight back pain, and a leg sore since my flight back from San Diego 10 weeks ago, doubt it’s a clot, too much sitting on my ass!) and the last time I tried standing at my desk helped the pains then. Whether that was the standing or just my body healing itself I don’t know.
I’ll admit I’m finding it really hard this morning, first time standing this long in a while!
Yes, you can concentrate just fine, you get used to it pretty quickly and it is well-known, anyway, that walking perks up your mind and increases focus.
As the aim is simply to keep your circulation going, rather than burn off calories, you keep the speed relatively slow, maybe 2 or 3 miles per hour.
I started with a standing desk about a decade ago, mainly for reasons of comfort, alternating between standing and sitting on a tall draftsman chair, but I was convinced by research I read a few years ago that explained how remaining stationary for long period of time, whether sitting or standing, kicks your system into a slower mode which is extremely bad for your heart.
Most coders cling to the belief that packing exercise into an hour at the gym or on your bike everyday is enough to keep fit but, apparently, this does little or nothing to counteract the deadly affects of remaining stationary for long periods of time.
It is also worth noting that walking gently increases your mental performance, meaning you get more done in less time – I was working 18 hour days, so, I was under real pressure to increase my productivity.
There are quite a few walking desk products that address this problem, all extremely expensive, but I realized that, actually, a fairly low-quality treadmill would do the trick: treadmills rise in price according to how capable the engine is, be able to cope with a full-grown man running at top-speed requires some a serious mechanism and some smart electronics, but a piece-of-crap, bottom-of-the-range Chinese treadmill is just fine for walking.
I paid about about ÂŁ100 on Amazon for a Weslo Compact Elite and it was delivered to me in pre-assembled form, which meant I simply didn’t attach the bit that sticks up, I only used the bed part and attached the dash display to my desk. Then I put caster wheels on the feet of my standing desk, so that I could easily roll it back and step onto the treadmill (very important to make these things as easy as possible or you simply won’t bother).
I also bought a few thick rubber mats to place under the treadmill, partly because a cheap treadmill won’t have great suspension, partly to minimize any noise that my downstairs neighbors might hear if I am working in the wee hours.
If you ever make it over to Edinburgh, you should definitely drop by for a nice dram of Talisker and a tour of my incarceration chamber.
Nice. I think I’ll stick with standing for a while before I even consider a treadmill!
Yesterday was exhausting standing the whole day and I forgot that I need to touch type without looking at the keyboard more. My body is closer to the keyboard than if I was sitting at my desk. The keyboard is less in my peripheral vision so it’s harder to see the keys. Luckily that’s not much of a problem but it’d be a huge pain if I wanted to try Dvorak again. Not that that is ever likely to happen..
I’d love to get to Edinburgh some time so if we do make plans to visit that part of the world I’ll get in touch first!