We spend a lot of time sitting at our desks every day, and while it may not look like it, it can wreak havoc with our bodies. Here's how to set up a healthy, ergonomic workspace to keep you comfortable and injury-free. Some of you may not realize how unfriendly your workspace is to your body, while others of you have already started experiencing repetitive strain injury (RSI) from an improperly set up desk. A number of different factors can cause injuries (yes, even at a desk), and they may not always be obvious—for example, slouching and keeping your shoulders tense can not only cause pinched nerves in your shoulders, but even hurt your wrists. If you haven't given a lot of thought to the comfort of your workspace, it's probably time to give it an ergonomic makeover. Here are the most important things you'll want to go through and change—both in your office hardware and in what you do when you're working.For the purposes of this guide, we're going to assume you're using a sitting desk.
If you really want to go all-out, many people (including some of the Lifehacker editors) have found standing desks to be an incredible boon to their comfort, and there are tons of great DIY solutions out there. If you're looking for a big change, I'd recommend reading up on that too—though for now, we're going to focus on the more traditional sit-down workspace. While you could go all out and build a custom ergonomic desk, all you really need to do is make a few changes around your workspace. Here's where you want all your hardware positioned, and why. People have been talking about ergonomic office chairs like the uber expensive Herman Miller Aeron line for years now, but there's no need to go plop down a bunch of cash just to be comfortable. Nowadays, you can grab much cheaper ergonomic chairs from a place like Staples or even upgrade your old chair with some DIY fixes. Note that some things are DIYable; Here are the things you need to make sure your chair has: Just plopping your mouse, keyboard and monitor on your desk is not going to give you a healthy working setup.
Here's how to make sure everything's set up in the right position. You want your mouse and keyboard to be as close together as possible, with the alphanumeric part of the keyboard centered on your desk. This means you want to pay attention to the keys, not the keyboard itself—most keyboards are asymmetrical, with the number pad on the right. Instead of putting the whole keyboard in the center of your desk, keep an eye on the "B" key. You want that to be directly in front of you and in the center of your desk (or, rather, where you'll be sitting at your desk).Whether your desk has a sliding keyboard tray or not shouldn't be much of a problem, as you have both an adjustable seat (right?) that can put the keyboard and you can adjust your monitors in a myriad of ways (see below). If you do have a keyboard tray, make sure your mouse is on the tray with it, not on the desk itself. You want your keyboard and mouse to be at the height where using them causes your elbows to be bent at or near a 90 degree angle, so you aren't bending your wrists to type.
While most monitors aren't super adjustable on their own, we've featured numerous DIY monitor stands that are ridiculously easy to build. I'm using the door stopper monitor stand myself, and it works perfectly. You want the point about 2 or 3 inches down from the top of the monitor casing to be at eye level. You also want the monitors to be about an arm's length away from where you're sitting. The trickier half of the equation is to eliminate glare on the monitors. While some monitors can tilt, many can't, and you're likely going to solve this problem with strategic lighting placement instead of monitor tweaks. As you're setting up all your hardware, you may want to take a look at this previously mentioned workstation planner. It will help you measure out the proper seat height, keyboard height, and monitor height for your setup, so you can double-check and make sure you've done everything right. The last thing you'll want to make sure of is that the most important objects at your desk are easily reachable.
You shouldn't have to reach for anything often, so use the space you have to store the things you need access to (note in the photo of my keyboard and mouse above, my Droid is the next closest thing). Everything else can go in drawers or other parts of the office. The swivelling and/or rolling chair helps with this: if your chair swivels, you have a larger space for which things are in direct reach.It doesn't matter how "ergonomic" your hardware may be, you still need to be pretty mindful of your body when you work or you'll never reap the benefits of your properly set up workspace. Here are the things you'll want to pay attention to every day to make sure you're being nice to your body. We've talked about good posture before, and if you've done everything right up until now, you're in a fairly good position: your keyboard is directly in front of you and the right level for a 90 degree bend in your arms, and your monitor is at eye level so you shouldn't be craning your neck up or down to see.
In addition, you should always make sure that you: It's no secret that sitting in one place staring at the same screen all day is bad for you. You want to generally take at least a five minute break away from your screen every half hour to hour. You'll also want to take some time every 20 minutes or so for the 20-20-20 rule: Every 20 minutes, take 20 seconds to look away from your screen and at something 20 feet away from you. The best way to make good use of your breaks (and remember to take them) is with the previously mentioned Workrave and AntiRSI, for Windows/Linux and Mac OS X, respectively. Both apps will notify you when its time to take a break, and Workrave will even suggest some good stretches to do to keep your body loose and RSI-free (though we've shared some of those with you as well). Previously mentioned EyeDefender will also help schedule some quick breaks that'll ease the strain on your eyes. It's something extremely simple you can do that will make a world of difference.