I have this bad habit of sitting for too long — it’s not necessarily a habit but more of an outcome of being a student — having to sit in lectures, sections, and work sessions throughout the day. As a consequence of this habit, my butt often hurts, not to mention other problems that arise. Studies have shown that sitting straight is an energy-consuming process. In order to reduce the sitting time, I’ve explored using a standing desk and work while standing. In this blog post, I will report my observations of this habit over the course of the last two days.
On Saturday, I went on a morning run and had lunch, where I ate sitting down. Then, I headed to Green library and did work with my friend. There, I used the standing desk in Lane Hall, where I was able to work while standing and use a monitor at the same time. For the first 2 hours, I remained in the standing position without sitting down, and I was able to get a lot of work done. After I finished the work I wanted to do, I sat outside and drank a cup of Coupa Smoothie. That was the only time I sat down that day. At night, I went back to my room (where the only way to not sit down is to stand and put my laptop on my bed, which had been lofted). In order to make sure that I would stand, I ended up putting my laptop on my bed. Although I couldn’t use a monitor this way, I remained standing until I went to bed. The mission was very successful.
On Sunday, I again went on a morning run and ate a quick brunch, then headed to Gates to do some work. I have a standing desk at Gates, and the plan was to stand as I did work. I stood for around an hour and then got tired, so I lowered the desk and sat for another half an hour. I repeated this back-and-forth multiple times that afternoon. In sum, I think the sitting and standing time were around the same, meaning that I sat for at least 2 hours, which is not good 🙁
As I reflect on the success of the first day and the downfall of the second, and as I represented these experiences using the two models attached above, there are several factors that I believe made a big difference. The first is my own energy level. I slept very well on Friday night and felt better rested on Saturday compared to Sunday, which could be why I was able to stand for longer. Additionally, the environment and my own state also mattered. On Saturday, I was way more productive as I had to do some coding work, whereas on Sunday, my task was relatively less modular and more open-ended (i.e. finding research paper to read throughout the afternoon). Another factor is that I was surrounded by many hardworking students in Green, which created a productive environment where I was very focused on my work. On the other hand, Gates was very empty on the weekend, and I was the only person in the office, which made it more difficult to enter the flow state.
In order to better succeed next time, I will be more mindful of my own state, the environment, and how these factors interact with each other and try to form a positive cycle.
