Some of you may be aware that I have now taken one more step into the realm of Living In the Future. I now work almost entirely out of my home, even though my official home office is in San Francisco. Even better, I’m telecommuting full-time while working for a company that builds solar power plants!
If you’ve surmised that I’m kind-of jazzed by both my new job and my new working environment, you’re correct.
One of the things that most excites me about the this new situation is the prospect of tricking out my working environment to be what I want it to be. This of course has led to a considerable amount of pondering as to exactly what I wanted.
The current thinking runs something like this:
Workspace design goals
I want to be able to spend at least half my day standing while I work. This is based on a recent avalanche of research showing that sitting all day while working is extremely bad for you. In fact, if you read one of the many articles on the subject, you’ll find an alarmingly accurate description of my own health issues: hypertension, hypercholesterol, diabetes type 2, coronary artery disease, and of course, weight issues.
(Before anyone gets all triggery about the weight issues being part of that, I want to be clear about something. I do believe in Health At Any Size. I, however, am manifestly not healthy at my current size. I’m also, however, not willing to really drastically change, say, my eating habits, beyond trying to limit my overall calorie intake to something closer to the RDA limits than I used to. So I’m doing other things that will work off some of those calories more, like exercising a bit more often and standing-desk).
This, of course, entails some serious customization of one’s work-space, especially when I already have a perfectly good desk, relatively recently purchased but until now rarely used, that’s set up for sitting height.
I also want lots of monitor real-estate. I’m perfectly capable of working on just a laptop screen, especially when my MacBook Pro’s native resolution is 1680×1050. However, I’ve become spoiled by my last two jobs, where I had one or two additional screens. It makes it very easy to have a code editor up full-screen on one panel while a browser runs in another with whatever reference information I might need (or, you know, a window for blog posting 
), for example.
In general, I want a reasonable level of ergonomics. After all, I’m going to be working here for 40 hours a week, except for those periods (about one week in eight) when I’m out in San Francisco; and I have only myself to blame if it’s not a comfortable working environment!
The current setup
For the moment, I’m using various make-shift methods for achieving sit-stand capability. I already had a lapdesk for laptops that has fold-out “legs” to prop itself up. I have this sitting in the middle section of my desk. Initially, this was where my laptop was, but then the company sent me a couple of monitors (about which more in a moment). This turned out to be almost the correct height for using the laptop seated or standing. It was just slightly low when standing, but I knew it was going to be temporary, so I just coped with it. When sitting, I just angled the screen downward a bit, and it was fine.
The company sent me two monitors, as I said. They’re kind of lame monitors, to be honest — 1280×1024 4:3 panels of the sort that aren’t even made any more. That said, the image quality is actually pretty good.
One of these has now displaced the laptop, which in turn is now off to one side, standing on a cardboard laptop stand I bought at Maker Faire for $20, when I was out in SF for my first non-interview visit to the home office. This makes it actually a perfect height while seated but still quite low when I’m standing. However, I’m using it as my “auxiliary” screen, so I just tilt the screen back so it’s easier to read when looking down, and for now, it’s fine.
For my keyboard, there was a white box, probably originally for holding paper, that was sitting around the office already. I turns out to be exactly the correct height for me to use when standing. When seated, for now, I just put the keyboard (my antiquated but still functional Kinesis contoured keyboard) in my lap.
Meanwhile, the second 1280×1024 monitor is currently on the work table behind me slaved to one of the development unit of the product I’m working on.
This setup is adequate, but definitely make-shift. It provides a useful working prototype for what I really want, however.
The long-term plan
Long term, I intend to be throwing Ergotron a fair amount of money for their various flexible monitor-and-laptop arm products. My original thought was to use their wall-mount products, and mount them to the hutch of my desk. Having obtained one, however, I’ve come to realize that this is impractical. The mounting bolts are quite long (as they should be, really) and the mounting plate quite large.
However, the hutch is designed with two side panels that can be dismantled. Removing one of these will leave a section of wall exposed that includes a stud, and the location should be just about right. This will be where the monitor that’s currently on my separate work-table will go, and this will leave it able to serve double-duty hooked up to both the SEEDS Gateway device (via VGA) and my computer (via DVI).
Meanwhile, I intend to get at least two more, desk-mounted arms of the same basic style, to mount both the other 1280×1024 monitor and the laptop. This should give me a great deal of flexibility for how I arrange things at any given time, based on sitting or standing and what specifically I’m working on.
Longer term, I plan to invest in a single larger, modern monitor that will take the central position. This, and all the Ergotron arms, are all on my own nickel, however, so I’ll be going slowly. This slow approach will also give a chance to really evaluate how a given change has affected my working environment, and evolve the plan based on what I learn.
Next time on Notes from the Home Office…
Having nattered on about my physical environment, ‘ll talk a bit about my digital environment…
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