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.

A Day in the Life ...

We all love a sneak peek into other people's everyday lives, so inspired by posts from Katherine Bilsborough and Atena Juszko, here's a day in my working life … yesterday, 6 Feb, 2020.

8.00 

My alarm goes off at 8 every day, but I'm always slow to get going in the morning so it's advisory rather than required and I often switch it off and turn over. This morning, I actually get up pretty much straight away. I go downstairs for breakfast, watch a bit of TV news and chat to my partner.

9.00 

Back upstairs in my office, I fire up my desktop, get dressed (no, I don't work in my PJs!) and make a second cup of tea before I sit down at my desk. As a slow starter, I typically spend the first hour at my desk easing myself into the day. I check social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and sometimes Instagram) for both personal and work-related stuff. I'm a member of a Facebook photography group to which I post a photo every day around the day's theme – today's 'frozen' and I find a photo I took of a rose covered in frost. I also check on a Twitter thread I've been involved in. It started with a question from a teacher about teaching phrasal verbs that got linked to a sample unit of a book I worked on, ETpedia Vocabulary. I notice one of my co-authors, Fiona Mauchline, has picked up on a tweet I tagged her in yesterday and joined in the discussion. This is one of the sides of social media I really enjoy. Other general admin today includes checking and replying to a few emails and adding an expense that's come through to my book-keeping spreadsheet.

My workspace ... no tidying for the photo!

10.00 

Tea 3 and I'm ready to start on some actual work. At the moment, I'm reviewing some teaching materials that contain several elements: text documents, slides and videos. I spend an hour working my way through a whole 'module' of the materials to get a feel for how it all flows and fits together, pausing over bits I'm not sure about, coming up with things I might comment on, but not actually writing anything down yet. I want to see the whole module before I formulate my feedback.

11.00 

It's a stunningly bright, crisp day outside my office windows. I'd planned to go out for a walk mid-afternoon, but I'm worried that the sun might not last, so when I get to the end of the module, I decide on a pre-lunch walk instead. Although I'm no longer sticking to the daily walking routine I had to complete my 1000-mile walking challenge last year, I still like to get out most days, especially when the weather's good. Today I do a route of just under 4 miles – that when I get back looks to me a bit like a rhino's head! – which crosses Bristol harbour, goes up through some 'secret' woods, back across the Clifton Suspension Bridge and down through Clifton village, stopping off for a few bits at the supermarket on the way. I get home feeling refreshed and hopeful that spring might not be so far off after all.

#StetWalk: Can you see a rhino's head?!

In the woods - in my green woolly hat (esp. for Kath!)

12.30 

Home for lunch. There's half an avocado in the fridge to use up, so it's a classic avocado on toast with a poached egg in front of the lunchtime news.

#freelancelunch

13.30 

Back at my desk and I spend the afternoon writing up my feedback on the materials I was looking at this morning. I have a couple of short breaks for more tea and while the kettle's boiling nip into the garden to refill the bird feeders that I notice are empty.

17.00 

I finish work on the module I was reviewing and spend the last hour at my desk on a bit more admin. Today I'm trying to sort out personal indemnity insurance because one of my contracts requires it. I find a reasonable quote and message a fellow freelancer who I know's been looking at the same thing to see how it matches up with what she's found. She replies straight away and we have a bit of a chat. Having a network of freelance pals is a really important part of my working life – without them, it could get really lonely.

18.00 

I need to ring my mum after missing a call from her yesterday and early evening's a good time, so I shut down my computer and log off for the day.

The day works out at 4.5 billed-for hours plus admin time which is about average for me. Over 20 years of freelancing while managing a chronic health condition, I've found that's a manageable amount of hours. My health's actually much better at the moment, but I'm not rushing to overdo it and risk a set-back. I'm happy to tick along with what feels like a healthy balance.

Home alone

I've been working freelance from home for 17 years now and, with a few interruptions, I've pretty much settled into a routine. So when my partner was made redundant at Easter, one of my first thoughts was that he'd be at home - and in my space - while he looked for his next job. 

We've had 9 weeks now of sharing the same daytime space, but this morning, I packed him off for a weekend camping trip with friends (rather him than me looking at the weather!), which means that I have the house back to myself for 4 whole days! So, partly inspired by Karen White's blog post about sharing a workspace with her husband, it seemed like a good point at which to reflect on how I'm getting on with having someone else in the house.

Plus points:

• He's always been really good at understanding that when I'm working, I don't want to be disturbed, so generally, I'm upstairs in my office and he stays downstairs and keeps out of my way.
• It's nice to share a break with someone, whether that's a chat over lunch or an afternoon cup of tea in the sun. He even goes and gets in afternoon cake ... 
• It's good to have someone to moan to. A few times when I've been really frustrated with work, it's been nice to let off a bit of steam and get a bit of sympathy. 
• I'm less tied to the working week. When the weather's been nice during the week, we've gone out and done something together and then I've worked a weekend day instead. Both of us having that flexibility is fun.

Downsides:

• I think I've mentioned before that when I work, I don't sit silently at my desk for hours on end. I like to wander around the house, especially when I'm thinking. So I might compose a tricky email to an editor while I pull up a few weeds in the garden or mull over contexts for practising countable and uncountable nouns while I'm emptying the dishwasher. Or I might just stand and stare out the window while I'm trying to work out the wording for a grammar note. Having someone else in the house makes me a bit more self-conscious, especially as when I go downstairs, he tends to take it as a sign that I'm having a break and I'm ready to chat.
• And then I talk to myself ... not all the time, but on and off through the day. Sometimes that's exclaiming at a stupid feedback comment out loud or more often it's just reading back something I've written to see how is scans. Again, it feels odd when there's someone else in earshot.
• Although the shared breaks are nice, they do seem to be longer than the ones I'd have on my own, which eats into my working time. And while it's good to have a mental break too and chat about something non-work, that's also thinking time lost.

Wording while weeding ...

All round, it's actually been fine. It wasn't until today when I realized how excited I was at the prospect of having the place back to myself that I really noticed how having someone else in the house had affected the way I work. And after all, hopefully, it's only a temporary arrangement, so I'm sure we'll continue to muddle through.

So what is this mouse going to do while the cat's away? I suspect I might just work through the whole weekend ... after all, the forecast's rotten ...

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 …