While I like being an early adopter, I have never really been one to follow fads. I haven’t seen a single Harry Potter movie, for example. So when I started seeing people using a standing desk for work, I compared them to lycra-wearing cyclists and tried not to laugh.
However about a year ago an accountant friend of mine switched to a standing desk and I sat up and took notice. He’s nearly as old as I am and doesn’t do much in the way of stay-fit healthy living, so I watched with interest to see how long he’d last before going back to a normal desk. I spoke to him in January and he was still using it with the only update being that he’d found a tall chair to sit at when his feet became sore. More to the point, he’d lost weight and felt a general increase in fitness and stamina.
So I spent a while Googling and wandering through websites and ended up convinced it was something I should try. Rather than go straight out and spend $1000 on a new desk I decided to try a temporary approach first. I bought some little wooden boxes on TradeMe and put them under the legs of my existing desk and have been standing at that now since the late January – about six weeks.
The first couple of weeks were really hard and my feet and legs were very tired by the end of the day. My legs settled down and since then my feet are tired by late afternoon but not really sore. I’ve done what my accountant friend did and bought a tall office chair to match the height of my desk and I sit in that from 6:00am – 8:30am, then I remove it and stand for the rest of the day.
So, how am I finding it? I’m hooked!
It’s strangely liberating to stand while working and I’m certainly noticing some improvements in posture and, strangely, digestion! Yes, my feet are a bit worn out but my back is better than it was and I seem to be sleeping better. I will certainly be replacing the temporary solution with something permanent after we move office. The only limitation I find is that for intense spreadsheet work I seem to have to sit down – strange, I know, but I seem to be better focused numerically when I am not standing. I certainly hope that is not the case for my accountant friend!
Philip Adamson, Managing Director, OutSource IT
Back to all articles
