October 13, 2019
A mouse, a keyboard, single or dual monitor, a chair, a desk, and laptop or PC of your choice. This is the minimalist desk setup for any typical office for work or at home. Yet many bloggers might have talked about many possible ideas for setting up the desk with those essentials.
Why a simple desk setup could potentially make huge difference? If you are an office worker or someone who spends a lot of time on computer, proper desk setup could boost up work flow and improve productivity. On the other hand, study has proved that improper desk setup can lead to musculoskeletal problems and symptoms.
Here are some tips for setting up a desk for better productivity, and more importantly for health.
- Desk Ergonomics
There are many tips and researches that show the critical things to look out for in terms of desk setup ergonomics. Poor desk setup can affect people’s hand, wrist, eyes, joint in the long term. Therefore, adjusting desktop essentials to fit your personal needs can really comes in handy.
According to experts from Wall Street Journal, there could be many ways to adjust things for a desk. But in the end, it all comes down to just monitor, keyboard, and chair.
- Adjust chair to your specific height and make sure your leg and arms are bale to maintain at 90 degree bend.
- Keep the keyboard away from your chest until your wrists are flat or angled downwards when typing.
- Adjust the height and distance of the monitor until it’s 20 to 40” from your eyes and away from glare (your neck should be free from pressure when looking at the monitor).
2. Desk Setup
Depends on what your job is, there are probably some other things you need to put on the desk for daily use. For example, there could be speakers, laptops, phone, books, earphones, pens, etc. Organizing these items is another way to improve workflow and productivity.
- Phone should be place on your none dominating hand to avoid distraction.
- put on earphones for music and phone calls to maintain workflow continuously.
- organize any books, notebooks, papers for easy access while they are not in your way.
3. Environment
Sometimes, the environment where you spend most of time working in could be underestimated by people.
Firstly, cells and blood need oxygen in order for them to function right. Poor air flow will not only make people feel uncomfortable, but also could cause potential health issues in the long run.
Secondly, the human body is designed to maintain thermal balance with outdoor or indoor temperature. Too hut or Too cold could result in unbalanced metabolism of human body.
Lastly, light is another key factor when it comes to work environment. Lighting in the workplace ideally includes task lighting and natural daylight. Window seat with proper daylight is the ideal way for desk workflow. If natural or ambient lighting is not enough, desk lamp should come to play for proper daylight simulation.
4. Personal Desk Setup
Other than these common tips and things mentioned for typical desk setup, there are many other desk essentials and technologies could be added to better fit your personal workflow. Major YouTube channels like Crafted Workshop, Justin Tse, Ali Abdaal have constantly updated desk setup ideas and examples, including small desk tech like wireless charing, led lighting, cable management tips, etc.
Desk setup essentials should really be tailored to fit your specific needs in terms of workflow, hardware, environment. Maybe your job requires you to work with duel monitor setup, maybe you need minimalist desk essentials for a clean look, or maybe you need noise-cancelling headphones for a quiet environment. These tips above will hopefully be useful for you to take in consideration, when setting up your own desk for better workflow.
Just Life Bridge 