The Standing Desk Experiment, Entry 2

A week-and-a-half ago, I rearranged my cubicle so that I could stand while I work in an attempt to be more fit and less sedentary. You can read about what sparked the change here.

After only a few days of being on my feet through most of the day, I realized one problem: I was ill-equipped in the shoe department for this experiment. My ankles, knees, and hips were threatening to call the experiment off.

So over the weekend I bought myself some nice gel inserts and "installed" them in these colorful plaid numbers, which were still in decent shape save for the hole I had worn through the bottom. (Not good for wearing in the rain.)



They will stay at the office, and I will be doing a Mr. Rogers routine every morning — walk in, change my shoes, sing a little song, and talk to my tiny, make-believe friends.

As for the standing desk itself, my first configuration put a cabinet right in front of my face, and I had to leave out a small bulletin board. I realized I could put the cabinet under the desk, leaving room for my big head and the bulletin board. It took a little loud work and a screwdriver, but I moved things to more useful positions, as you can see:

There are two things to learn from creating this second configuration: First, if you're considering a standing desk for yourself, don't run out and do it in a flurry of excitement; make better use of your time by planning it out first. Second, if you're dealing with furniture that is designed to be modular — like the type of cubicleware I was moving about — take a good look at it first. After needlessly turning screws in and out in knuckle-scraping spots, plenty of loud noise, and quite a few curses, I noticed that the cabinet (like everything else) was designed to be easily disassembled and reassembled.

Had I noticed that earlier, I would have saved quite a chunk of time, energy, and sweat.

I seem to be adjusting to the standing desk fairly well. My legs and feet aren't as sore as they were after those first few days, and I generally don't get as tired at work as I used to, back in those sit-down days.

I'm considering getting a stool and nixing the chair, but what I really want is a set of wireless headphones, or at least headphones with a six-foot cord (those purple ones in the pic have only a three-foot cord).

It's awful hard to dance around the cube when I'm so closely tethered to the CPU.