There's a Desk For That

By Kevin Meyer

Regular readers know I've been a big fan of the stand up desk ever since I discovered

a couple years ago.  I

my old executive desk to a stand up model, came across

supporting the concept, and had several other people in my company converted by

.  We even took a look at

for our stand up desks.

Our fellow blogger

just pointed me to a

article that discusses the subject, not just from a health perspective but out of desire to find a better way to work.

I’ve spent several weeks trying to find the perfect way to work at my computer without a chair. The search was not quixotic; standing up is in vogue. Medical researchers have found that people who stand at work tend to be much healthier than those who sit, and there’s a large online subculture of stand-up fanatics who swear that getting rid of your chair will change your life. But I wasn’t just looking for better health; standing, I hoped, would also improve how I work.

The author decided to get an adjustable model similar to mine, which allows you to either sit or stand.  So what happened?

Standing when you need to focus.

Nichole Stutzman, creative manager for the ergonomic furniture company Anthro, which makes a wide variety of adjustable-height desks, spotted a similar pattern at her office; people tend to stand when they want to get something done.

“We have a lot of designers here, and when they’re trying to draw or do something creative, I start hearing the desks go up,” she said.





I suspect that this is because when you’re standing, you feel a bit unchained from your desk. If I got stuck on a word or sentence as I wrote, I found myself shaking my arms, bouncing on my feet or stepping away from the desk for a bit — things I couldn’t do in a chair. Often, the antsy-ness seemed to relax my mind enough for me to get over my creative hurdle.

Which is exactly what I experience.  If I'm sitting I'm complacent, my mind begins to wander, and I even daydream.  If you doze off while standing up you fall over.  Standing somehow creates focus and engenders creativity.  Spreadsheet analysis completed in half the time, documents read quickly, reports written concisely.

In fact, the only time I tend to sit in the office is when I read my morning Wall Street Journal.  Try it, you just might like it.