Post 1 in the series: How to Set Up Your Desk

              Buy the eBook

Note: This series is now available as an ebook at Amazon, with an expanded introduction (on how this relates to changing the world, and some other things), some various updates throughout, a list of further resources, and an appendix on how to turn an entire wall in your office into a white board (highly recommended!).

Posts in This Series

1. How to Set Up Your Desk: An Introduction
2. How to Set Up Your Desk: Basic Principles
3. Excursus: Against Desk Hotels
4. The Four Ways to Configure a Desk
5. Where to Put Your Desk
6. What to Put on Your Desktop and How to Use It
7. What to Put in Your Desk Drawers and How to Use Them
8. The Rest of the Room: How to Set Up Your Office

To follow up on our recent series on recommended productivity tools, we’re starting a series today on how to set up your desk.

Setting up your desk well is something that all of us have to deal with, and yet there is almost nothing out there on how to do it. There is some good advice here and there, but it is typically scattered. The only thorough treatment of desk setup that I know of is in Organizing for Dummies. The chapter is very helpful, but it is not online. There is no single online place to go to in order to get a clear view of how to make your desk work for you as effectively as possible.

So that’s what this series aims to do.

Why Desk Setup Matters
It makes sense to think through your workspace setup for several reasons.

First, when you have your desk set up well you minimize resistance to carrying out your work and thus can get more work done. That’s the key principle here: Set your desk up well in order to minimize resistance so that you can give your focus and energy to actually doing your work.

Second, you will simply work better if you have your desk set up well and know how to use it. Which is another one of my aims here: A desk is a workflow system. Therefore we ought to approach it with intentionality and purpose. We can be more effective when we know how to use our desks and are intentional, rather than ad hoc, because we deal with them every day and have to use them to get all sorts of important things done. The principle here is: Understand your tools and know how to make the most of them.

Third, when your desk is not set up well it creates drag and thus drains time, energy, and focus. I like how they put this in Organizing for Dummies:

You don’t need to be an efficiency expert, interior designer, or feng shui master specializing in the Chinese art of placement to know that the right work space can set you up for success, while a whatever approach to your workplace layout can sap your time, energy, concentration, and creativity” (p. 183).

Or, to put it another way: “Clutter sucks creativity and energy from your brain” (To Do Doing Done, p. 92).

Fourth, you use your desk about every day, and knowing how to use it is not hard to figure out. So the benefits you get from this are large, but the cost involved is small.

Fifth, it makes work more fun when you know how to use your desk. A well-run desk is a work of art!

Who Needs to Do This?
Not just people that work in an office. I like how David Allen puts it:

A functional work space is critical. If you don’t already have a dedicated work space and in-basket, get them now. That goes for students, homemakers, and retirees, too. Everyone must have a physical locus of control from which to deal with everything else. (Getting Things Done, 89.)

I got interested in this subject years ago largely as an outgrowth of implementing GTD. After putting the task management systems in place, it made sense to make the other aspects of my work as smooth and efficient as possible as well.

So I did some reading on desk setup, engaged in some trial and error, and developed some basic principles. (And then kept going with this trajectory in regard to every other room in my house so that I could minimize drag wherever I could — yes, a bit strange, I know!)

On Flexibility

I don’t want to say here that there is only one right way to set up your desk. There are some pretty tricky situations given the setups that are often thrust upon us, such as odd-shaped cubicles or, if we have an office, uncooperative room layouts. And personal preference also plays a huge role as well.

The problem I found, though, is that these factors lead many to give the advice of “just do what works for you.” Which really gives no guidance at all. The result, I found, was that I had to think about my desk a lot more than I wanted.

So although individual situations and preferences vary, there are principles for how to do this more effectively than otherwise. The key is to apply the principles in light of your own individual preferences and specific situation.

To summarize: Setting up your desk well and knowing how to use it minimizes resistance to your work and makes it more enjoyable. The result is that you are more drawn to actually do your work, giving you a productivity edge that also makes work feel less like work. And you won’t have all sorts of piles getting in your way.

These are my notes from a few years ago on organizing your workspace. They reflect a combination of points from Organizing for Dummies, Getting Things Done, and my own thoughts.

More detail could be given, but in the meantime they outline the big picture. I especially find helpful the observation that all of the permanent stuff you might have at your desk falls into four categories: supplies, equipment, reference, and decoration.

After that, the concept of centers is especially  useful (although I currently do things a bit differently than what is represented in these notes).

Stuff At Your Desk

Permanent Stuff:

• Supplies: In drawers. Small stocks (only what need). Extras in supply room.
• Reference: File cabinets, bookshelves.
• Decoration: On desk, walls; keep limited.
• Equipment: On desk if used more than once per day; else, drawers.

Transient Stuff:

• Input to be processed: In box
• Current work items
• [If not electronic] Action reminders: Calendar, next action lists, project lists
• [If desired; I think these go best in a file drawer at your desk] Project support materials: Active projects file; planner.

Work Centers At Your Desk

Desktop centers:

• Phone center
• Computer center
• Capture tool center or planner center [if you use a paper tool for either]
• Work center

Drawer centers:

• Pen/pencil/related supplies center
• Mailing/finance center (if needed)
• Stapler/filing center

File Centers [in file drawers]:

• Pending
• Projects
• Operations
• Reference
• Archive

Basic Principles

1. Like with like. One spot for all books. All filing cabinets together. Create centers for different tasks by grouping everything necessary for them together.
2. Purge. All things that are unused or ill-suited should be tossed.
3. Access. Goal is fingertip management. Use an L, U, or parallel shape for your desk. U is best, as it allows easiest access to the most desk space and equipment. Move infrequently used equipment, reference materials, and supplies to another room.
4. Contain: Keep files in cabinets, books on shelves, and supplies in drawers.
5. Evaluate: How do you feel? Does the work flow?
6. The desk is a place to do work. Use REMOVE to reduce clutter and arrange desk properly.
   1. Reduce distractions.
   2. Everyday use (if not, drawers).
   3. Preferred side (all things go on right side if you are right handed; phone is one exception–it goes on opposite side).
   4. Organize together: Create work centers for phone, computer, time, etc. Phone center should include phone, message pad, pen nearby. Good for capturing thoughts and tossing into in-box as well.
   5. Empty the center (so you can work).
7. Supplies are for the drawers. Group like things together. Turn each drawer into a work center: Central is pen/pencil; others are mailing/finance and stapler/filing.

Jakob Nielsen, the web usability guru, makes a point about large monitors that I completely affirm:

Big monitors are the easiest way to increase white-collar productivity, and anyone who makes at least $50,000 per year ought to have at least 1600×1200 screen resolution. A flat-panel display with this resolution currently costs less than $500. So, as long as the bigger display increases productivity by at least 0.5%, you’ll recover the investment in less than a year. (The typical corporate overhead doubles the company’s per-employee cost; always remember to use loaded cost, not take-home salary, in any productivity calculation.)

Apple and Microsoft have both published reports that attempt to quantify the productivity gains from bigger monitors. Sadly, the studies don’t provide credible numbers because of various methodological weaknesses. My experience shows estimated productivity gains of 5-10% when users do knowledge work on a big monitor. This translates into about an 0.5-1% increase in overall productivity for a person who does screen-focused knowledge work 10% of the day. There’s no doubt that big screens are worth the money.

I personally use a 2048×1536 display, and I wouldn’t even call that a really big screen. Within the next 10 years, I expect monitors of, say, 5000×3000 to be in fairly common use, at least among high-end business professionals.

Starting at 1600×1200, users rarely stretch their browser windows to the full screen because few websites work well on such a wide canvas. Big windows are magic for working on spreadsheets, graphic design, and many other tasks, but not for the current paradigm of Web pages. Today, big-screen Web users typically utilize their extra space for multiple windows and parallel browsing.

In sum: Get a big monitor — at least 1600×1200 resolution and 24 inches. It might cost a little more, but in a very real sense it may be wasteful not to.

As an aside, here is a very interesting comment that he makes on where the web may be going as monitor resolution grows even more. Very, very interesting:

To serve Web users with truly big screens in the future, we’ll probably need a different paradigm than individual pages. Perhaps a more newspaper-like metaphor or a different information dashboard will prove superior down the road.

After reviewing the ergonomics article I mentioned in the previous post, there were a few things I wanted to make sure and remember. I’m jotting them down here for the benefit of any readers as well.

(I used to not think much about ergonomics, but now I see that bad ergonomics can cause headaches and other problems. When you work at a desk most of the day, it makes sense to try to get this right.)

Chair Height

The height of the chair should reach just beneath your knee cap when standing. This allows your feet to rest firmly on the floor when you sit in the chair.

Armrests

This has been a puzzle for me. I like them, but sometimes find that they keep me from scooting the chair under the desk. Since I don’t use a keyboard tray (next point), this is a problem. The document says it’s OK to get rid of the arm rests. That’s good: they’re not essential. Ideally, though, you could adjust them to a height that doesn’t hinder getting close enough to the desk to reach the keyboard at a comfortable length.

Keyboard Trays

You can go either way here. I’ve had desks where I like them, and others where I don’t. At this desk I have the keyboard on the desktop, and given the desk height, that is the most natural position.

Mouse and Keyboard Height

Your mouse needs to be at the same height as your keyboard, whatever you do.

Monitor Height

The top of your monitor should just below your eye level. It should be slightly tilted back. Your line of site will then line up most naturally. This is important for preventing headaches.

There is a lot more on the subject of ergonomics. These are just the quick notes that are most important to me right now and keep proving hardest to remember. This is a subject I need to learn gradually, because for some reason it does not come naturally.

These notes are from the document “Ergonomics Guidelines,” published by the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission of New Brunswick.

I just got a stand to set my laptop on while it’s on my desk and connected to my other monitor. The user’s guide had two helpful ergonomics tips in it:

Center your external keyboard with your screen.

Put your screen at eye level and arm distance.

The idea of putting your monitor at arm distance was new to me, and is already proving incredibly helpful. First, it’s probably better on my eyes. Second, I find that I simply enjoy using my computer more when my monitor is farther away.

That’s a simple change that I’ve found to have significant results.