However, I have to quibble with the "Healthy Hacking: DIY Supine Workstation" article linked to. That's a guaranteed way to make sure your muscles waste away, particularly if your aim is to "improve [the] ability to work for long hours." The human body is designed for movement, and static working is having a terrible impact, particularly on people who work on computers: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csz4bf
My back was a mess until I got a standing desk and started pilates. What I found interesting is that the standing desk made me move around quite a bit more - I end up doing lower-body yoga poses sometimes and I feel much better for it. I deliberately choose not to work long hours (I recognise I'm lucky in that respect, although I run my own company, so it's partially earned luck) but when I do need to, I can always bring my desk down and use a chair.
I currently have 3 mice (all different shapes), a trackpad, and a trackball hooked up to my workstation, with some on the left of my keyboard and some on the right. I switch between them depending on what currently hurts most. Seems to work better for my tendonitis than when I only used one device with my right hand. It's basically all the devices I went through, one at a time, trying to figure out which worked the best. They all do!
Floor desking is my go-to for maximum variability though. It just needs "enough" monitor height/size that you don't hunch over to peer at the text. The rest happens naturally.
In both cases I use only a wireless keyboard/trackpad combo now. When I started out doing this I quickly realized it was the peripherals that were the problem.
- having your hands elevated above chest height sucks after a few minutes. The Altwork and Ergoquest workstations suck for that reason, and you _need_ a split keyboard if you don't want numb fingers.
- not moving sucks. I think I've hurt my neck and back (and throat) more by doing this than I'd like to admit
- for short periods of time, and when you can _actually_ relax (side projects etc.), working in this way is divine.
YMMV.
Side note - I discovered OP Andy Matuschak around 3 hours ago while pimping my Obsidian config, and have been the biggest fan of @msgsloan's vim Todoist plugin for years.
Very interesting about hands elevated above chest height. I also thoroughly agree about using a variety of postures. I think for a lot of folks supine / reclined might be too relaxing for work. I find it to work decently for an hour or two before feeling lazy
What I found was that with a couple of pillows on my couch, I could elevate my upper body in a gentle curve which resulted in my eyes being almost level but with no stress on neck or back (compare this to the guy in the article elevating just his head, which is too acute an angle and stresses the neck). At that point I just moved my monitor to various positions and elevations in my sightline until it seemed right. I had my mouse on a coffee table so that my arm was not elevated, and my keyboard on my lap (this part required touch-typing, otherwise I would have to keep lifting my head).
Once I found the sweet spot where i was relaxed but supported ( it wasn't that hard), I could pretty much work indefinitely. At that point the issue was no longer stress on any body parts, but the potential overall fitness degradation of lying down all day, which could theoretically be solved with regular breaks for getting up and moving around, but I was probably a bit lazy with that.
It was actually a really comfortable setup, which is not what these experiments usually result in for me, but it did take up a ton of space (indoor hammock stands are pretty huge). My favorite bit part is that a sleeping hammock is a pretty nice and dynamic thing to lay in. You can fidget and change positions every few minutes and it will usually reconfigure itself into a somewhat reasonable position. Plus, pop a VR headset on and you have a pretty good spaceship.
I understand that this comment is made in good faith and with the best of intents, but I loathe getting this kind of advice. I'm not trying to be a dick, I just want to let you know that this advice is extremely frustrating for a lot of people suffering from back pain. ESPECIALLY "you look young and healthy"...Yea thanks, I'll probably still look young when I'm in a wheelchair.
PS If your back hurts and your doctor doesn't seem to believe you or care, get a new doctor.
I recently went to one session with a PT to diagnose it, since it's returned again this year. It's probably chronically strained quadratus lumborum or some other muscle involved in spinal extension. Avoiding upright sitting as much as possible definitely helps. I've recently moved closer to things so that I can bicycle to most things instead of driving, and I think that's helped too.
The PT thinks the solution is to train my movement patterns to use more core / glute stabilization rather than dumping the responsibility on the back muscles. There are various exercises to help train those patterns and strengthen then muscles involved.
Personally I find a standing position healthiest: for women in particular, it avoids particular long-term hip flexor problems.
Am I the only one here who lays around on their bed in various positions while typing on my laptop?
I switch from laying on my back/front/side every 15 minutes or so, to prevent my body from getting to kinked up. I also practice Ashtanga every morning before I start work.
Sometimes I prop it up on my bent legs when laying down with no pillow, sometimes I prop my head up with a few pillows and leave the laptop on my flat legs.
Been doing this for years now and I absolutely love it.
Doesn't seem to bother my sleep either. I know when I'm done work for the day (usually after a few hours of programming), put the laptop away, and get on with my day.
Anyone got a good ergonomic setup for achieving 135° recline, no-neck-flexion computing? (Besides buying that one ridiculous $5000 chair, I mean.)
For positioning the laptop, suspending it works pretty decently for laptops that have a large range of motion in the hinges - https://mgsloan.com/posts/suspending-laptops/
If you want to see more wildness, a couple of my other posts are more unusual:
* https://mgsloan.com/posts/polarizer-glasses/ * https://mgsloan.com/posts/tree-based-computing/
here's something in a similar vein: https://peteshadbolt.co.uk/posts/goldfish/
I think it's better to find a comfortable chair instead, unless you don't have choice but laying down. It's important to keep the laying down pose dedicated to sleeping/resting, do some exercise at other time and this could boost your productivity.
With how severe the corner is on the MacBook, I’d compare the impact to being whacked with the back of a 4 lb butter knife.
One solution to sun is to use shade strategically - https://mgsloan.com/posts/tree-based-computing/#handling-the...
Cram the keyboard end of a laptop between the headboard of a bed and the wall, rotate the display 180º in the OS settings, and plug in an external keyboard and mouse. Lie down in bed and compute.
Works okay except that strain is then offloaded either to your wrists if you have a regular keyboard (not like the OP has), or legs if you arch them underneath the keyboard.
Love this!
There are also some fully wireless split keyboards like the southpaw centromere. I found the thumb keys to be too inward / too few for my taste.
