Arguably not a strong selling point, Donald Rumsfeld is known to use a standing desk. You may not like the man, but anyone has to admit that he got stuff done. I read somewhere that some of the Founding Fathers also favored them. According to wikipedia, they were popular in the 1700’s, so maybe that’s true. Several times in my life, I have felt overwhelmed and behind. One way that I found a new sense of urgency and momentum was to adopt a standing desk. A box on your normal desk moves a laptop to a comfortable height for typing while standing, and it makes a reasonable kludge. There are other designs out there by some other bloggers.

If you move your chair out of your office, I suspect you will discover that random surfing-of-the-internet disappears from your life. Sitting down is appropriate for eating and masturbating. It’s much less fun to seek idle entertainment while standing. If you are standing up and your writing or programming hits a lull, the immediate impulse is to go do something rather than alt-tab to a browser and see what has happened on slashdot.

In the long term, it’s not too enjoyable. But I want to kick my life up a notch, and one quick way to do it is to ditch the office chair.

-Peter