WFH laptop ergonomics

So, you suddenly find yourself working from home. You've got a laptop and wi-fi, easy peasy then, huh?

As someone who's suffered with RSI-related chronic pain for 20 years, the thought of folks swapping their workplace desks for a laptop on the sofa rather fills me with dread. Working from home may be helping protect you from coronavirus, but it's really important you don't let other aspects of your health suffer in the process.

You might be used to using a laptop at home to browse social media or do a bit of online shopping, but that's a very different kettle of fish from spending a whole day focused on fiddly work documents. That's why those of us who work from home full-time invest in getting a good workspace set up. Here's mine with a large monitor (slightly raised), keyboard, mouse (and graphics tablet) along with a decent office chair.

From an ergonomic perspective, the key thing is to have a set-up that allows you to sit and work in a comfortable, relaxed position where you're not hunched over to see your screen and your arms and shoulders aren't getting twisted or fixed into awkward postures. It's awkward, tense postures held over a period of time that can lead to aches and pains, and if you're unlucky, persistent and longer-lasting problems.

But you're working on a laptop, right? So what can you do to optimise your set-up? Well, my number one bit of advice is to get yourself a separate mouse and keyboard. They don't have to be fancy schmancy – you can get a basic keyboard and mouse combo for £20-30 (order online if you need to). That'll then give you the freedom to rearrange your set-up to make it much more ergonomic.

Once you've attached your keyboard and mouse, you can move your laptop, which you're now using as your screen so that it's the right distance away (about arm's length from where you're sitting) and by propping it up on some books or folders, ensuring it's the right height (with the top of the screen at roughly eye level).

Then you need your keyboard and mouse nice and close to you near the edge of the desk or table you're working at. What you really want is to keep your arms directly in front of you as you work without having to stretch too far for either your keyboard or your mouse. Ideally, you want to keep the top part of both arms hanging loosely by the sides of your body. Personally, I have a short keyboard without a number pad because it allows me to keep my mouse close rather than having to stretch out to the side for it.

Stretching mouse hand out to the side with a standard keyboard

Less stretch with a shorter keyboard

The next thing to check is the height of your chair relative to you 'desk'. You may not have the luxury of a proper office chair when you're working at the kitchen table, but there are still some basic things you can do to help you sit better. The key thing to aim for here is that your seat should be high enough so that if you let your arms hang down loosely from your shoulders, your elbows should be either at or slightly above the level of your 'desk'. That means that when you type or use your mouse, your whole arm can stay relaxed. If your chair is too low and you're reaching up for your keyboard, the tendency will be for your shoulders to creep up and create tension. So if the chair you have is too low, go find a cushion (or two) to raise you up a bit. And if that leaves you with your feet dangling off the floor, find a box or something to put your feet on and relieve the pressure on your legs.

Chair too low and hands reaching up for the keyboard

A much better elbow angle with a couple of cushions

Now you've got your set-up right, the key is to stay as relaxed as possible when you're working and to sit back in your chair as much as possible so that your back's supported – again a cushion might help on a hard chair. And of course, take regular breaks too. Especially without your usual office chair, these become even more important than ever.

Wishing everyone good luck adjusting to home working!

PS. Special thanks to Tris for patiently posing for photos.

Is café working really workable?

Working from home is fabulous. I’ve been doing it for 17 years now and most of the time I love it.  Just occasionally though, domestic life gets in the way. For the past week and a bit, we’ve had workmen in renovating our bathroom. The work was pencilled in months ago when I had no idea how it’d fit into my work schedule and inevitably, it’s come at exactly the wrong time, just when I’m at my busiest, juggling a couple of projects and really can’t afford the disruption. What with the noise, the mess, no loo and the water and power going on and off, it’s meant that I haven’t been able to work from home.

Because I can’t afford to lose the hours, I’ve worked through the past two weekends, I’ve been squeezing a couple of hours in each evening and I’ve been trying to get in a few hours during the day working in cafés. All of which has left me exhausted, frustrated and having actually achieved very little in the way of work.

The idea of the freelancer sat in acafé with their laptop seems very appealing, but in my experience, it’s really not a workable solution.

Focus:
I’m lucky that living right in the city centre, I have a huge choice of cafés all within a few minutes’ walk, so I can pick spots that are relatively quiet. Even so, there is inevitable background noise and distractions. And however laid-back the café, you’re always a bit conscious of the time. The waitress has cleared away your coffee cup and you’re wondering how long you can stretch it out before you order something else. Or the free wi-fi only lasts for an hour.

That’s not so bad when you’re working on things that don’t need your full focus and that you can pick up and put down. I soon exhausted those tasks though and found that I was onto new, from-scratch writing that really needed my full attention and an uninterrupted run. In trying to squeeze in bits and pieces here and there, I was being really unproductive – spending ages puzzling over the same thing, going back over stuff again and again and just not moving forward. To the point where I just had to give up and admit it was better to lose a few days.

Logistics:

I generally work at a desktop pc, so decamping to a café means transferring stuff to my laptop. That isn’t that difficult in an age of Dropbox, but it still requires a bit of thought and planning. Making sure you’re always working on the latest version, uploading all those incidental files you might need to refer to and oh yes, coping with slow/intermittent wi-fi.

Ergonomics:

For me though, the real killer is the physical workspace. As someone who suffers from chronic pain, working at a laptop for an extended period is generally a no-no – you’re hunched over with the screen at completely the wrong height in relation to the keyboard and those horrible fiddly little trackpads are a nightmare. Then when you add to that flimsy café chairs that don’t offer any proper support and a table that’s at the wrong height for the chair, it’s a recipe for disaster. This morning’s café stop, for example, had a nice quiet table with a reasonably comfy chair, but the chair was much too low for the table and within minutes, my shoulder was killing me. This afternoon, I’ve switched to somewhere with a high, bench-style table and a seat that puts me at the right height for my arms to drop down more comfortably onto the keyboard, but I’m perched on a stool with no back, which is starting to take its toll on my lower back.

The good news is, the work on the bathroom is due to finish tomorrow, so fingers crossed, I’ll be back at my own desk by Thursday. And yes, at least I’ll have a nice new bathroom …

Laptop lap ban

Since my desktop PC died a couple of months ago, after many years of trusty service, I've been working solely on my laptop until I can afford a new desktop. As a long-term RSI sufferer, I'm very aware of the pitfalls of long-term laptop use; a screen that’s too close and at the wrong height, a keyboard that you inevitably use in the wrong position and that horrible mouse pad which requires awkward, repetitive finger movements. So when I'm at my desk, I use a separate keyboard and graphics tablet (instead of a mouse) and I have my laptop screen propped up so that it’s at eye level and a good arm's length away. So far, so good.

Recently though, my RSI has flared up particularly badly – mainly the result of all the stress and tension caused by the noise from the building work next door and added to that the less-than-ergonomic setup in the office space I'm renting to escape the noise (not my usual comfy chair, desk not quite the right height, fewer opportunities to get up and wander around taking my usual mini breaks). Anyway, my body’s heightened sensitivity to all things ergonomic has made me realise that despite all my efforts to set up my workspace as healthily as possible, I seem to have got into the habit of unplugging everything and taking my laptop downstairs to the living room in the evening. There I sit in a squishy armchair with it on my lap, checking Facebook and e-mail, doing a bit of online shopping or planning my next holiday. Normally, I'd say that's fine if it's just the odd 10 or 20 minutes here and there, but at the moment, I find my mouse hand is cramping and getting painful after just a couple of minutes. Those fiddly little trackpads really are evil!

So I've had to impose a ban on using my laptop away from my desk. And boy is it tough! Unlike many people, I haven't gone down the route of smart phones and tablets, I don't even use my mobile very much, I quite enjoy the idea of being completely off-line when I'm not at my desk. So it was quite a shock to realise how addicted I'd become to my evening armchair surfing. There's always been a point in the evening, usually somewhere around nine o'clock, where I get a craving for chocolate, which I usually satisfy with a square or two of Dairy Milk. And it seems that my mid-evening internet fix has become equally ingrained.

The ban’s been in place now for a couple of weeks and I am mostly sticking to it. It'll be interesting to see, if I keep it up long enough, whether I can kick the habit entirely.

Working way down south

This week I'm in Mousehole, in Cornwall, right down on the bottom 'nobble', just a few miles from Lands End. We've rented a great little cottage for the week and have had some lovely days out walking along the cliff paths in the sunshine and having long pub lunches. I have, however, brought my laptop with me and I've given over a couple of days to working.

Some people have expressed sympathy that I've had to work while I'm on holiday, but I don't see it like that at all. It was a choice between this or a long weekend away and the rest of the week back at my desk. I think this option's much better! I don't worry about blurring the line between work and play, I had no trouble today doing a couple of hours work this morning followed by lunch in a pub in the sun, then a productive afternoon at my 'desk'. I'm now about to give up for the day and go out for a late afternoon wander along the harbour. Feels like a great work-life balance to me.

Old kit

I'm now installed in my cool Brighton pad for the week and have resisted the temptation to go out shopping and have spent the day working away on my laptop. (Not that much of a hardship as it's rather grey and chilly.) I've got a nice big table to work at in a bay window, so bright and quite inspiring even on a cloudy day.

As you'll see, rather than the graphics tablet I'd intended to bring with me, I've got a standard mouse. The reason? Well, when I went to plug my graphics tablet into my new laptop, it wouldn't recognise it. Unsurprising perhaps, seeing as my tablet's more then 12 years old! I got it when my RSI first started and I went freelance, along with my screen, keyboard and chair, all of which are still going strong. I think that's quite impressive in today's throw-away age!

I know I could probably have downloaded the relevant drivers to get the graphics tablet to work, but I had a long list of other stuff to do, so just grabbed the mouse instead for this time. The set-up's not feeling too bad, especially since I propped the laptop up on it's case to give me a better typing angle. I need to find out if there's such a thing as a combined carry-case/cover and stand - if not I might have to design and make my own.

Working away

Today is my last day at my desk before I go away for more-or-less the rest of the month. I'm off to Brighton tomorrow for a week for the annual IATEFL conference, then I've got just a day at home before I head down to Cornwall for an Easter break. I could have done both trips as long weekends, but I decided to add a bit of time to each to enjoy a change of scene. That's not to say that's going to be time 'off' because I'm going to be taking my new laptop and working while I'm away.

In both locations I'm renting an apartment with wi-fi, so this won't be squeezing in a bit of work sat on the bed in a hotel room. I'm quite excited about setting myself up a new working space for a few days, but also feeling a bit wary about working from a laptop. I'm always warning about the dangers of working at a laptop and I'm very aware that the set-up I'm taking with me breaks a lot of the rules when it comes to ergonomics. I'm going to be taking my graphics tablet with me (that I use instead of a mouse), but I don't have a laptop stand yet, to adjust the height I work at, or a separate keyboard. It's a tricky dilemma, because one of the other effects of the problems surrounding my RSI is pain and weakness in my shoulder, which makes carrying stuff difficult. So having specifically chosen a lightweight laptop, it then seems silly to add to my luggage with a whole load of extra bits and pieces.

I guess I'll just have to see how the experiment goes ... I'll post some pictures from Brighton.

RSI Day Part 2: Fiddly fingers

So it's Monday morning and you've sat down at your desk for another week working away at your computer. Well, if you're at a desk with a proper screen, keyboard and mouse, then avoiding RSI is a relatively easy affair. It takes very little time to get your workstation set up correctly, only a bit of effort to think about your posture, and a little discipline to take regular mini breaks. With new developments in IT though, we seem to be moving further and further away from the rather chunky, but safe desktop towards smaller, more mobile but potentially less healthy alternatives.

I've talked before about the potential dangers of laptops, with their cramped setup; necessarily working too close to the screen, at an angle that's difficult to change, using a small keyboard and a truly horrible mousepad. But even that can be got around with a little bit of effort; see my February 2008 archive for some ideas or check out this link for an NHS Laptop Health guide.

Over the past couple of years though smaller, handheld devices, like Blackberries and iPhones seem to have become more and more popular. For many, they're no more than glorified mobile phones on which they can quickly check their e-mail or look up multimap to find an address. But I get the impression that for some people they're becoming a key part of their working day, to send full-length e-mails or to read whole documents. And that's a concern because their small size inevitably entails fiddly, awkward hand movements which when repeated over longer periods are going to cause RSI-type problems. As someone who already suffers from RSI, I'm particularly sensitive to those awkward little movements. I spent ages looking for a mobile phone with comfortably large and separated keys (a definite gap in the market, with older users on the increase). And when I've tried using other people's iPhones, as beautiful and sexy as they look, to me they set all kinds of alarm bells ringing. Whilst touch screen technology might feel like a more comfortable, natural development, when it's on a tiny little screen a few inches across, those awkward little repeated 'fingerbob' style movements are a recipe for disaster. And as for those miniscule little keypads, whoever thought that was a good idea?!

Yes, I know, I can hear you say that you don't use it very much, but how much is 'much'? These things creep up on you and and it can be quite easy not to notice just how much a part of your daily life something is becoming. Avoiding RSI type problems is hugely about self-awareness, being honest with yourself about just how long you're spending doing awkward, repetitive movements, looking at yourself objectively from the outside. So if you do nothing else, try and be a bit more aware of how you're working with IT this week, whether that's gripping your mouse too tightly, not taking enough breaks, craning your neck to see a laptop screen or spending too much time using your Blackberry or iPhone.