As it’s not been mentioned, I’ll say that you should pay very close attention to your desk height.
I had no idea that mine was too high. And then I sat at a colleague’s desk and it was low. Like lowrider-car low. Crazy low. And wow did it feel comfortable.
So then I fixed my own desk. Not to be crazy low, to be the right height. Because if it’s too high, you’re hunched all day. Your shoulders are up, you’re tense.
I also changed my chair. I had a classic office chair, but again too high (I’m average height, not a millimetre more), and with wheels. The wheels were killing me — all day your legs are trying to keep you stable, which sounds like cool exercise but isn’t. Turns out just being stable is better.
So I bought a chair. A wooden chair with four legs. About AU$80 from IKEA.
These two things alone transformed my RSI. I know, because I didn’t change my keyboard (Microsoft Ergo Sculpt) or my mouse (Logi MX Anywhere 3? whatever, just a mouse), or anything else. I didn’t exercise.
I fixed my desk height and my chair and my crippling RSI went away.
Some of the key realizations that led to healthier working posture for me have been:
1. Remembering what I learned from piano lessons at music school: keyboard should be approximately under your fingers if you relax your arms and bend your elbows 90 degrees. Where playing, you you have to engage your arms, not only fingers.
2. Putting screen at approximately eye level, give or take.
Yes, the above means a laptop is by default unsuitable for serious work. An external keyboard and/or display is a must.
3. Realizing that what we (at least in my generation) were taught at school about “orderly” position at a desk is a pile of something between wrongness and abuse. Relaxed, laid-back sitting position is best for you, and any boss or instructor who tries to tell you otherwise is engaging in status games.
A piano keyboard is flat and in front of you, all you can adjust is the height. But computer keyboards can be adjusted more - why bend the elbows 90 degrees, if you didn't have to, would that be the ideal thing to do?
I wouldn’t say it’s about forcing yourself to bend the elbows at 90 degrees rather than being in a position in which your elbows are naturally relaxed at approximately 90 degrees, give or take. It’s definitely worse if the angle is sharper, but I haven’t been comfortable with my arms straightened much further beyond that either. I suspect gravity’s impact on blood flow, perhaps it’s individual.
Split keyboards are definitely a rabbit hole one might want to explore, but it’s just logistically difficult to find a good unit that Just Works(tm), is configured or easily configurable as one would expect, doesn’t incur extra latency, is compact enough if you want to work from somewhere else, has key caps you want, is in stock, etc. Meanwhile, external mechanical wireless keyboards with good Cherry switches are available from the usual retailers these days and they take you 90% of the way if you’re currently working with a laptop as is (where your screen cannot be anywhere other than at the level of your hands and vice-versa). Thus, to me the returns of split keyboards are diminishing—to anyone who has wrist or other working posture-related issues and works on a laptop without a dedicated keyboard, I’d say fix that ASAP before starting to geek out on splits.
PS. To be honest, based on my experience, on some of those photos people’s positions look very uncomfortable for every other reason besides the split.
I had no idea that mine was too high. And then I sat at a colleague’s desk and it was low. Like lowrider-car low. Crazy low. And wow did it feel comfortable.
So then I fixed my own desk. Not to be crazy low, to be the right height. Because if it’s too high, you’re hunched all day. Your shoulders are up, you’re tense.
I also changed my chair. I had a classic office chair, but again too high (I’m average height, not a millimetre more), and with wheels. The wheels were killing me — all day your legs are trying to keep you stable, which sounds like cool exercise but isn’t. Turns out just being stable is better.
So I bought a chair. A wooden chair with four legs. About AU$80 from IKEA.
These two things alone transformed my RSI. I know, because I didn’t change my keyboard (Microsoft Ergo Sculpt) or my mouse (Logi MX Anywhere 3? whatever, just a mouse), or anything else. I didn’t exercise.
I fixed my desk height and my chair and my crippling RSI went away.