Organize Your Home Office Day

What the day is

Organize Your Home Office Day is observed on March 8. The general case for decluttering sits on the January entry for organizing the home; this one is about the workspace specifically, where the stakes are physical.

Origin and background

Home working was largely improvised, and a great deal of it still happens at kitchen tables on laptops. That combination is ergonomically poor in a specific way: a laptop fixes the screen to the keyboard, so the screen is always too low if the keyboard is at the right height, and the keyboard is always too high if the screen is. The neck takes the difference. The standard remedy is to separate them, raising the laptop onto a stand so the top of the screen sits at roughly eye level and adding a separate keyboard and mouse, which is inexpensive and the single most effective change available.

The chair matters next, and the useful measure is the relationship between hip, knee and elbow rather than the price. Feet flat, thighs roughly level, elbows near a right angle at the keyboard, and lower back supported. A cushion and a box under the feet will fix a great deal.

Light is the third. A screen placed facing a window produces glare, and a screen with a bright window directly behind it forces the eyes to fight the contrast. Side-on to the window is the position that works.

The most underrated intervention is movement. Guidance on prolonged sitting has converged on changing position regularly rather than finding one perfect posture, and a short stand or walk every half hour does more than any chair.

Cable management belongs last, because it is the part people start with and the part that changes nothing.

How to take part

• Raise the laptop to eye level and add a separate keyboard and mouse.
• Set the chair so feet are flat and elbows sit near a right angle.
• Turn the desk side-on to the window.
• Set a reminder to stand every half hour, which beats any posture.
• Deal with the cables afterward, once everything else is placed.