I don’t want to die.
I sit down for 12+ hours a day in my home office.
Sitting for that long every day is definitely going to kill me.
And the fact that I binge on junk food every now and then makes things worse.
(I have a sweet tooth – can’t help it)
This standing desk craze isn’t some fad.
Just google “sitting kills you” and read all the science-based research on this stuff.
There’s study after study after study proving that “sitting is the new smoking.”
To make things worse, sitting will kill you even if you exercise.
So there’s no way around it.
You ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO stand during your work day if you want to avoid a heart attack.
For me, there are 2 problems with getting a standing desk:
- I’ve already spent a lot of time and effort designing my home office, and I don’t want to re-design it again (I’m too lazy)
- Even if I consider re-designing it, I don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on a new standing desk (they’re too expensive)
The good news is that a couple of months ago, I stumbled across a blog post that solved those problems for me.
It was about the Furinno adjustable laptop table and costs around $60 from Amazon.
So I bought it immediately.
I now love this thing.
The best part about the Furinno is that I can shift between sitting and standing anytime I need to.
It’s also super light and I can easily adjust its height.
I just keep it on the floor next to my desk.
When I feel like standing, I simply disconnect my laptop from the docking station, and place it on the Furinno.
That’s it!
The only drawback is that it’s not big enough to hold my keyboard or mouse (or external monitor of course)
But that’s ok.
It’s a minor inconvenience for a solution that costs less than $100.
It’s like a super-cheap insurance policy on my health.
And an added benefit is that I actually burn more calories while standing up (i.e., I can eat more of these).
If you ever consider getting one, here are a couple of tips that’ll help you out.
Tip #1: Ease into it
Studies recommend that you stand between 2 to 4 hours a day (more is better)
I tried standing for 3 hours on my first day and then quit for a week.
It hurt my back.
So I started standing 30 minutes for a few days, and then gradually increased the time until I got to about 2 hours.
Now I’m used to it and will be adding more time as I go along.
I also take frequent breaks by walking around and stretching my muscles.
The point is to ease into it.
Don’t go crazy on your first day.
Tip #2: Save your angle settings
When I first got my Furinno, it took a while for me to find the ideal height.
It comes with 3 spring locks that you can adjust into multiple angles.
There are different shapes you can form it into.
The best shape I found was the one you see in my picture above (a zig-zag shape)
It’s the most stable and the laptop doesn’t wobble while I type.
However, I kept forgetting to save the right angle settings after storing the Furinno away.
Which meant I had to redo the whole thing all over again multiple times.
Very frustrating.
So do yourself a favor and save those angle settings somewhere once you have a height that works for you.
Here a picture of the settings that work for my own comfort (starting from the top: -75 degrees, -90 degrees and -45 degrees)
Maybe start with those and then adjust up or down if you’re taller or shorter than me.
I’m around 5ft 10inches (177cm) tall 😉
Hope you found this helpful.
Hassan
