Tag Archives: desk

Standing up for an entire week

May 17th, 2011

No, I did not embark on some Houdini-style test of my endurance – I tried standing at my desk for an entire week. Overall it was pretty nice but I’m back to sitting down this week. I thought I’d share my experience and so I jotted down notes every day while I stood.

Day one: My heels are hurting some, knees hurt some, and I find myself leaning on my desk every now and then.  Not when I’m completely focused on what I’m doing but when I’m watching a video, reading email, or otherwise doing a passive task.

Day two: Because I worked for the morning at Zummo’s Cafe, while I was waiting for my car to be repaired, I stood for only about 4 hours in the afternoon. Which was a really great balance I think.  So, no soreness today really and not much leaning either.

Day three: I stood for most of the morning and then had some errands to run in the afternoon. I’m finding that while I don’t mind standing and, in fact, I feel good about standing – I’m noticing that I am able to focus less. An interesting side effect to standing is that, at the end of the day when I’m finished working, it feels really good to sit. Almost as good as it feels to sit after a workout or mowing the lawn. Feels good.

Day four: Standing is nearly second nature now. (Wow, that is an odd sentence, isn’t it?) I’m not leaning and my overall alertness for the day is higher than it used to be. Typically I have an daily alertness and productivity curve. I start off on fire early in the morning, lull around lunch time, and really pick up again right before stopping for the day. During this standing experiment I’m finding that my overall alertness stays at a much more steady height with no lulls.

Day five: I think I’ve found that there are times when I like standing and times I’d rather sit. An example of when I’d like to sit is when I’m tasked with fixing a bug in some bit of software I support. When I really need to “hunker down” and dig into the application to find out what could be happening – for whatever reason it feels more natural for me to sit down and focus on the problem-at-hand. I can’t seem to get the same level of focus, the same level of “digging” while standing. I don’t know why.

 

I’m back to sitting this week and I really think it is all because of this focus issue. I do find it much easier to focus on code (and I don’t code too much at work anymore) when I am sitting. If I had a desk that could raise and lower at the touch of a button (rather than using a series of allen wrenches like I need to use now) I’d probably stand in the morning while doing email, conference calls, and web browsing and sit in the mid-morning or after lunch while I’m really trying to concentrate.

I see Shawn Blanc is grabbing the torch from me (whether he knows it or not) and so I recommend subscribing to his blog to see how it works out for him.

The iMac as my main computer

October 22nd, 2009

The old iMac on desk

Taken on October 15, 2004.

Five years ago today: Well, not really. I haven’t been keeping up with my “five years ago today posts” and so this one is a bit late. Switching to the Macintosh was a fairly long process for me due to the work I was doing at the time. My having the iMac up and on my desk, as my main computer at the time, was sort of a big deal for me.

The desk I had at the time was an old library table. It wasn’t very fashionable but it was sturdy and did its job until I switched to the IKEA desk that I have now.

The Microsoft Wireless keyboard and mouse, which came with a USB dongle that I despised, wasn’t a bad setup at the time. I miss the ergonomics of the keyboard, actually. The new, slim keyboards from Apple are incredibly nice to type on but are not as nice on the wrists as that keyboard was.

You’ll notice that a really old version of TheUberGeeks.net (a site that has since gone the way of the dinosaur) is loaded on the iMac. The good old days indeed.

Videos: Lose weight at the office

February 25th, 2009

As most of you know I have struggled with my weight ever since reaching adulthood. The reasons for my weight gain are vast but one of the more significant reasons is the fact that I work at a desk all day. That is, I sit all day. Even though I play basketball, try to jog when the weather is good, and am generally active when the opportunity is there to be so – I still sit all day. I eat break, and lunch, sitting at a desk.

Here are a few videos that I have seen on Viddler recently to help those of us that work at an office, or at least at our desks, and would like to do something to help ourselves during the day.

The office workout

Jennifer DiDonato, whom I interviewed on the Viddler blog several months ago about her Brides Made Fit show, has an excellent episode of Made Fit TV that relates to this very problem. The office workout, as she calls it, involves a few exercises that you can do without leaving your desk and – even better – without the need of special equipment.

Fat loss tips with Marc Lebert

Even though Viddler Adam Toohey calls this a Fat Loss Tips video I think these are more just great exercises you can do with or without The Equalizer. I use chairs to do these exercises (until I can afford an Equalizer because I think it looks like a really simple and great piece of workout equipment).

However, Marc makes a great point in the video that I think many people are really, really confused about that try to lose weight. Eating. Your metabolism is the #1 weapon against weight gain and your #1 solution for losing weight. It is, in a sense, the silver bullet for dieters. Anything you can do to restore your metabolism and to keep your metabolism working at a high rate will both help you lose weight and help you keep it off. (More on this in a future post.)

So there are two quick videos that I think will help all of you office workers. Like me.

Short video tour of my office

February 12th, 2007

I would start a meme out of this, but those are just plain annoying to most people – so if you feel compelled to follow suit, please trackback this post, reply to my 9rules note, my Viddler forum post, or comment on this blog post. Or, do all of them! Choices!

Here is a short video tour of my current office setup. It consists of a Macbook, a Dell 21-inch widescreen monitor, some external hard drives, and a few iPods all on a desk from IKEA. I’ve also got my art desk (which I need to use much more often than I am currently). And don’t forget, my new office used to be filled with blue elephants.

Short tour of my office via Viddler

If you can’t do video – perhaps you can take a few snapshots and post those. Whatever works best!

[tags]office, desk, ikea, viddler, 9rules, video, tour, macintosh, apple, macbook, dell, monitor, ipod, external hard drive, watercolor, art, colin devroe[/tags]
[slug]office-tour-video[/slug]

My new office used to be a filled with blue elephants

October 11th, 2006

When we first came to look at our new apartment we saw just what we expected in nearly every room. After the previous tenants had left, our landlord went through each room and restored the floors, walls, and even some of the appliances.

See, the tenants that lived here prior had a few kids and a few dogs. I’m not sure on the number of kids, but I am sure on the number of dogs, two. And not your run of the mill puppies either – a pit bull and a rotwilier. From what I’ve been told the two dogs wreaked havoc in the apartment all day long tearing apart wood and such. Our landlord had done a very good job of repairing the damage by the dogs.

But, did he do just as good of a job repairing “the damage” from the children? My current office is the old kids-bedroom. Here is what the bedroom looked like prior to us moving in.

The office before we moved inThe office before we moved in
Complete with elephant border

Yellow and ?turquoise? with an elephant border. Not exactly the image I had planned on projecting with ChanceCube, so it had to go.

Over the few weeks preceding our move-in, we stripped off the wallpaper, put down a coat of primer, two coats of paint, one coat of trim color, and generally cleaned it up. Here are a few photos showing that progression.

Me scoring the borderScoring the border
Border has been scoredBorder = scored
Border is removedSee ya elephants
Me removing the outlet coversRemoving outlet covers
Me patching holes and painting trimFixing holes and trim
One primer coat One primer coat
Nearly done 
Nearly done

Painting the office

For whatever reason my other two helpers on this project are not in any of the photos – probably because they were the ones taking the photos. Eliza and Mike helped me through each and every step of the process, so thank you both for helping me out.

The finished productThe completed office

You can see the end result and it was truly worth the effort as I now have a place, free of elephants, that I can get my work done.