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Monday, February 20, 2012

Standing Desk - Week 2

I know you all are waiting with bated breath to find out how my standing desk experiment is going. If you need to catch up on the drama of things you can read all about it here, here and here.

Over the second week of doing a standing desk, I started to feel more fatigue and I found that it affected my ability to work well. When I'm doing non-intensive tasks that don't take a lot of creative mental energy, I can push through the physical weariness and keep working. The more mentally demanding jobs, however, were much more difficult to do. Toward the end of last week I found myself taking more breaks to sit and, on Friday, ending out my day on the couch. I just didn't have the physical energy to keep going to write more in-depth work.

Today I'm standing again and I plan to continue standing most of the time. But I do appreciate what I learned from last week. I am a whole person and my physical state has a large effect on my mental capabilities. When I'm tired physically I don't perform as well mentally. It will take some time for me to have the physical/mental endurance to work standing all the time.

I'm also going to experiment with not doing any recreational computing from the standing position. So when I take breaks to check Facebook or play video games, I'll do it sitting. That will serve as a good mnemonic device to signal my body and mind to get into work mode when standing or relaxation mode when sitting. I find that I can relax more when I have a clear difference between the posture of relaxation and the posture of work.

What thoughts do you have? Have you taken the plunge and started standing?

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