Intraspirit

Several months ago I began having intense back pain in the evenings. Wondering why I was in pain, I began to closely investigate my daily routine. After about two days of researching myself, I found the culprit: It was because I was sitting all day.

Being a programmer, I often fall into the trap losing myself in concentration. "Getting into the zone", as it is commonly called, has very profound affects on the way my attention is spent. There have been many days where I will simply forget to eat because I was in the zone. Unfortunately, this state of concentration causes another problem: bad posture. As my mind would slowly drift into the Nirvana of ones and zeros, I would lose track of the way my body was supporting itself—leaning on things and slouching all over the place.

Convinced that bad posture was my problem, I began searching the web for answers. I stumbled across a post by Jamis Buck outlining his decision to start standing while working. I thought what he had done was a reasonable solution for the problem so I scavenged my apartment for books and boxes to create a makeshift desk of my own. After about 4 hours into the experiment, I realized that I liked it. So began the arduous task of finding a decent stand-up desk.

Now, you may be thinking that this part would be fairly easy, and it mostly is. However, for a frugal guy like me that wasn't sure that he would even stick with the whole stand-up desk idea, it proved to be fairly difficult. I looked around at websites selling very large, and heavy, wooden structures that cost thousands of dollars. Those definitely weren't for me so I took a trip to the Charlotte Ikea in hopes of finding salvation. What I ended up building cost around $200.

The desk you see above is an Vika Grevsta table top with four Vika Byske legs. After setting the legs how I need them, which for me is around 42" in length, and nudging the bottoms of the legs outward towards each corner to stabilize it, I can say that I'm happy. I've spent about a month with this desk now, and I can easily see positive differences in my productivity, stamina and when I decide when to take breaks. Just in case I do get tired of standing and need to sit and rest, I have a barstool with a back tucked away under the desk.

Now, go try the stand-up lifestyle for yourself.