Slashdot Mirror
Standing While Working Results in Better Work?
Bamafan77 asks: "I've recently become fascinated by the idea of standing while working. I've found that I'm much more productive for
longer periods of time while standing as opposed to sitting. The best way to describe it is that my brain feels more 'engaged.' Apparently, many famous people feel the same way including Thomas Wolfe, Vladimir Nabokov, and Winston Churchill. Other benefits include a better ability to control weight. (Guess what? Your slow metabolism ain't the cause for that belly). The Mayo Clinic has gone so far as to do research into a treadmill workstation. Does anyone here have experiences to share when it comes to standing while working, especially in the IT field?"
> I can't stand around typing all day without some serious pain
Perhaps you haven't had your workstation set up right. I suppose I am lucky: though I do development work in an ugly gray cube-land, my company pays an ergonomist to come in and measure people and adjust their workstations (keyboard tray and countertop height, chair position, etc.), the idea being that paying disability for folks with RSI and such is way more expensive than having the ergonomist in for a visit whenever we hire someone new.
Anyway, the point: I told the ergonomist six years ago that I wanted a stand-up cubicle, with a high chair I could pop up onto if I wanted to sit. My cube's counters got raised, its shelves went down near the floor, a new chair arrived (a pretty cheap one actually, but I don't spend much time on it)... and voila. I usually stand and type comfortably for the better part of an hour; then I'll hop up on the chair for ten or fifteen minutes max. (The chair is adjusted such that I don't have to raise/lower the keyboard tray when I move from standing to sitting.)
This works really well for me. My wrists don't hurt anymore, and neither does my lower back. (True, this may have a lot more to do with good ergonomics than it does with standing versus sitting.) I feel engaged with my work when I am standing. If I sit for too long, I either wanna slouch (which makes me wanna take a nap), or I get fidgety. No thanks, I'll stand.
I've tried this and have known several people who have tried this. In the short term, the novelty tends to lend itself to "higher productivity." It seems that freeing yourself from the trappings and surroundings where you've allowed yourself to develop bad habits (slouching, surrepticiously surfing /., playing solitaire, staring at that mark on the wall of your cubicle) that are not productive causes you to have a spurt of higher productivity. Nowadays, I find that a periodic change of venue helps me in the same way - I goto the library for a while, move to a table and spread my stuff out instead of on a desk, sit on the floor or on a couch. I think that the people that I work with innately understand what I'm doing, even if it looks funny.
The only thing I have against standing is that I have to find a counter or something of similar height that functions as a work surface - otherwise, i'm hunched over and a sore back is a real productivity killer....