Standing Is The New Sitting

This plan was born back in July, when my client announced a total restack of their Illinois headquarters office building. They just opened the top half of the building, and moved people in from other buildings and decided to do a huge reorganization. My team moved up one whole floor! Not exactly the dramatic move I was anticipating. 

However, it did give me the perfect opportunity to get the wheels turning on an idea I'd been mulling over for some time. 

There have been many articles lately with research showing the correlation between sitting at work during the day and having a shorter lifespan. Or just being generally not as healthy. (See articles listed at the end of this post for more information.) The solution?

A standing desk.

Yes, standing at work. No more sitting for 8+ hours a day! Even though this concept has been gaining popularity, many combinations of "standing", "desk", and "DIY" in Google lead to dead ends as far as furniture for a cubicle. (Many ideas about implementing one in your home, though!) I was about to resign myself to buying a milk crate and a shelf intended for a closet when A had a great idea.

"We can make that."

I wasn't sure we could, but turns out, we're pretty crafty! (Plus A handled the power tools.)

Home Depot was our supplier. We started with some fancy particleboard.

And invested in some thick square posts for legs.

We had the high school / college student cut them to our carefully eyeballed specs. Then at home, we got to work!

After some sanding, drilling and many turns of the screw driver, we had a standing desk riser! (Orion is present for size comparison.)

It looked awesome, but the big test was to come. First up: Getting it into the office. Turns out, security didn't bat an eye. Only two people looked at me strangely on the elevator. Next step: Holding my breath while seeing if it actually fit on the cubicle desk. It did! Then the last hurdle: Making sure it would hold the heavy old monitor. Success!

So here is my new sweet setup:

Yes, that is a crazily-colored doormat under my desk. It's actually made from recycled flip-flops, and has just enough give to be a break from the floor.

Here's a closer look... we actually ended up putting another shelf on the top. Gives me a convenient place to store my notebooks and notepads.

Yes, that's Will Turner. He guards my stuff whenever I have to leave my desk for meetings. He was given to me by my sister A. Sister S has Jack Sparrow.

Close-up of my new bamboo plant, since most likely it will either die or have to go home to recover from the lack of light in our new location. (No windows... seriously.)

Final shot of my entire desk area. I now share an enlarged cubicle with two other team members. Downgrade from our last location. (We each had our own cubes.) I bought a bar stool at our apartment building's garage sale to use to rest my feet while I build up my standing tolerance. (6 hours today!) Yes, I also have an exercise ball. I was sitting on that until the new standing adventure.

All in all, I really like the standing desk. So far it's made the day go faster, and I feel happier compared to sitting (in a completely un-ergonomic chair). My coworkers are either jealous or perplexed. (One asked what it was for. I couldn't think of an answer other than "Standing?".)

Articles with supporting research:
http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/healthcare/prevention/story/2011/08/Excessive-sitting-linked-to-premature-death-in-women/49996086/1

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100722102039.htm

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/stand-up-while-you-read-this/