Working On My Feet

This week­end I did some­thing I’ve been think­ing about for some time. I threw away every­thing I’ve ever been told about «work­sta­tion ergonom­ics» and adjust­ed the height and angle of my draw­ing table up. I moved the draw­ing I’m work­ing on up high­er on the board and pushed my chair aside. I did the next cou­ple of hours of draw­ing stand­ing up, sit­ting only when I did some­thing with the computer.

I liked work­ing stand­ing. I’ve noticed before that I feel more engaged in a project if I’m stand­ing up. I’m not sure why that is beyond a few obvi­ous rea­sons hav­ing to do with main­tain­ing a cer­tain ten­sion in the body to keep myself upright. It feels more active. Some­times when I sit down at a desk I feel more pas­sive than when I’m stand­ing. Yes, some­times I’ve main­tained good focus in a sit­ting posi­tion. It’s not an on/off propo­si­tion, but one fac­tor among many.

My set­up with the draw­ing table is not ide­al. I still have to lean in a bit too far to get at the work, and that leaves me sup­port­ing some of my weight with my left hand as I lean right in to the table. Then straight­en­ing up can take a bit of extra effort. Nev­er­the­less, I think I’m on to some­thing here.

I’ve thought for some time now about set­ting up an office or work­space with­out a chair, with the mon­i­tors at stand­ing eye lev­el and table­tops at var­i­ous heights depend­ing on their tasks. I can­not say whether that’s an idea that will take flight, but its an idea with some mer­it borne out by the set­up in my stu­dio right now.

One of the things that I think I’ll have to change is the chair. I haven’t sworn off sit­ting alto­geth­er, and I split my time at the draw­ing board today about half and half, sit­ting and stand­ing. The chair at an aver­age height for a chair required my to repo­si­tion the art­work on the board when I went from sit­ting to stand­ing or vice-ver­sa. I think a draft­ing stool may be in order: a chair that sits high­er than nor­mal, with a footrest above the floor. That would per­mit me to leave the work at the same height while switch­ing from a seat­ed to a stand­ing position.

In the mean­time I’ll keep adjust­ing, see what works and what does­n’t. There’s no bud­get for fur­ni­ture right now but I can keep mod­i­fy­ing the set­up so that when it comes time to get fur­ni­ture I can real­ly be cer­tain of what I need.