We all learned in recent years that working from home has its perks and challenges.
One benefit I'll highlight in this post is
setting up your working environment exactly as you want - especially when it comes
to ergonomics.
I've personally struggled with wrist and back pain over the last couple of years despite being
relatively young and sporty. I experienced what many learn in their late 20s:
Sitting in front of a laptop all day takes its toll on your body.
Since I'm a professional keyboard warrior I had to figure out some ways to make my working hours
healthier.
Some of the adjustments I mention here are already broadly accepted and some are more daring
- necessity is the mother of invention, right?
Before we start
I extended my current setup over the years and by now it cost me quite a chunk of money. What's central to
thinking about these investments is that they are among the highest return-on-invest items I own.
Since I work from home for around 8 hours on 200 days a year, I use them more often than any other item apart from my bed.
So I regret not a single cent spent. Also, (at least here in Germany) you can get some tax back for
home office investments.
Back pain
I developed back pain around 4 years ago. Consequently, I successfully implemented a couple of things to
improve my posture:
- better chair with more adjustability
- height-adjustable table
- monitor arm for better positioning
- walks between working sessions
- doing some stretching & core exercises every day
All these have been discussed broadly elsewhere and I recommend you learn about how to
set them up correctly for your unique body. I'll dig deeper into a gadget that's more daring but
really made a difference to me.
At one point, I figured that I would most likely have less back issues if I had a
non-sedentary job. So if I not only want to fight symptoms but change the real
source of my problems, I could either quit my office job or
try to be more active at my desk. As you might have guessed, I chose the rat race and bought a walking pad (pun intended).
Me in an interview with a major German bank (re-enacted)
I find that walking at your desk has many benefits:
- it's not as static as standing and sitting, providing the movement necessary for a healthy back
- you have some physical effort while working, which I am sure is better for your heart and general health over the long run
- you're the coolest kid in the meeting when everybody sees your head moving up and down,
giving you plenty of opportunities to brag about your healthy new gadget
The walking pad significantly improved my ability to work at a desk without back pain.
I find the steady movement it provides so much better than just standing still for hours. This should
be reflected in natural movement patterns as our bodies evolved to walk for long distances every day.
When friends are interested in buying a walking pad themselves, many fear they might lack concentration
while walking or have difficulties to type. I can share that I personally never had either one
but I recommend to keep the speed low at about 2 km/h.
A central tip on this is to optimize for position change time. You might already
have a height-adjustable desk and know the situation where you remember that you should stand up
but it takes a couple seconds so you tell yourself: "nah, not now" and end up sitting all along again.
It's the same for the walking pad, which takes even longer to switch to. If you have a non-foldable pad stored behind
your wardrobe, it'll take you maybe a minute to get it, place it under the desk, plug it in, raise your desk
height and start the mill. That's why I went for a narrow foldable that's on one side of my broad table so all I need to do
is to raise the table, unfold the pad, get the monitor, mouse and keyboard to the other side and start walking.
It also paid off to get a monitor arm that can swiftly be turned from side to side.
The whole process might take me as little as 15 seconds and by now I rarely find myself too much in a hurry not to switch
position when I feel I should. I also set a timer to 40 minutes every time I sit down so I remember to make use
of my investment.
Wrist pain
I remember experiencing wrist pain for the first time when I was writing the 130 pages of my
master's thesis on my laptop's keyboard. Back then (without ChatGPT) I had to type for hours on end
every day for weeks. I soon realized, the pain faded when I used an external keyboard for one hand
and the laptop's keyboad on the other so the position of my wrists was more natural. Unfortunately though,
this is quite tedious since the Shift and control keys are not synced between both keyboards.
Years later my issues became critical while I was on a yearly bike trip with my closest friends.
That year, we had many sections on gravel and I didn't have any suspension.
The stress of the impacts on my wrists was immense so I developed carpal tunnel syndrome, numbing
two fingers on one hand and having constant tickles on the other. Luckily, the syndrome improved
after a couple of weeks but I found that the issues were worst after long workdays.
That made me set out to find an alternative to writing on my laptop's keyboard which led
me to the world of split ergonomic keyboards.
I now own a Glove80 and I wouldn't go back again. Its main benefits are:
- it's split and height-adjustable so you can find the most natural position for your hands
- it's concave and has a columnar staggered layout for natural finger movement
- it's programmable, so you can optimize the layout to your personal usage patterns
My desk view. The UI on the display can be used to configure the keyboard's behavior.
I found the first point to be most critical for my wrist issues and recommend everybody to get a keyboard with
a more natural layout. After I switched to a
Logitech ERGO K860 (that's not programmable), my pain was remedied already.
Still, I now went for the Glove80 since it's programmable, which I was hesitant about at first - but it turned out to be a real game-changer for typing speed and accuracy.
With a very simple web-UI you can digitally change, which character/command will be sent from the
keyboard when you hit a specific button. Also, you can specify whole layers of new layouts
that are activated when holding a certain key - just like shift changes the output of
other keys.
So the central idea is to make best use of the keys that are easy to reach from the resting
position of your fingers - also called the home row (i.e. asdf on the left hand).
With simple layers for numbers and special characters, I now use only the 46 best available keys
out of the 80 the Glove80 offers. Consequently, I don't need to move and twist my wrist at all
any more, which makes typing both faster and less stressful on my hands.
Another feature of programmable keyboards with the same benefits are the so called
"home-row modifiers". It's the genius realization
that buttons on the home row, such as 'f' are just tapped and never held (or why would you
want a long sequence of 'fff...'). Combine this with the fact that the modifier keys (such as
Shift, CMD, CTRL, layer) are among the most frequently used keys and are held only and never
tapped. So keyboard designers made it possible to have different functions per key
for tapping or holding them. For instance, my 'f' key is a 'f' if I tap it and a Shift
if I hold it. That's a critical improvement since 'f' is on the home row and therefore extremely
easy to reach!
Learning and adapting this new layout surely takes some time and effort but it pays off
hundredfold if you consider how many years you'll spend typing.
Even if you don't want to switch to a split keyboard yet, I have two further recommendations
that had a huge impact on my wrist pain.
First, get a vertical mouse. They are widely available and lack nothing other mice
offer while being less of a strain on your hand.
Second, try hovering your wrist instead of using palm rests or such. I only stumbled
upon this on Reddit but it's very natural and easy and relieved my wrists immediately.
A bonus for people who also ride the bike a lot: get your bike fitted to your body
professionally. I always thought
my setup is decent but only after spending 200€ on this I got rid of my issues for
long rides.
That's all I want to share for now. Thanks for sticking around and please don't hesitate
to reach out regarding your ergonomic challenges.