I Am Not A Programmer

I remember reading this published insight[1] from Marissa Mayer a few months ago:

Burnout is caused by resentment

Which sounded amazing, until this guy who dated a neuroscientist commented[2]:

No. Burnout is caused when you repeatedly make large amounts of sacrifice and or effort into high-risk problems that fail. It's the result of a negative prediction error in the nucleus accumbens. You effectively condition your brain to associate work with failure.

Subconsciously, then eventually, consciously, you wonder if it's worth it. The best way to prevent burnout is to follow up a serious failure with doing small things that you know are going to work. As a biologist, I frequently put in 50-70 and sometimes 100 hour workweeks. The very nature of experimental science (lots of unkowns) means that failure happens. The nature of the culture means that grad students are "groomed" by sticking them on low-probability of success, high reward fishing expeditions (gotta get those nature, science papers) I used to burn out for months after accumulating many many hours of work on high-risk projects. I saw other grad students get it really bad, and burn out for years.

During my first postdoc, I dated a neuroscientist and reprogrammed my work habits. On the heels of the failure of a project where I have spent weeks building up for, I will quickly force myself to do routine molecular biology, or general lab tasks, or a repeat of an experiment that I have gotten to work in the past.…

I built one of these:

http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Ikea-Standing-desk-for-22-dollars.html

and I've been using it since early July and spend most of my day at it. It has significantly helped how my back feels by the end of the day. It's plenty sturdy (I actually bought two of the tables: one for my monitor and keyboard, the other I cut the legs down to the same height as the keyboard on the other table. I put my laptop on this one).

I also have a Steelcase Leap chair I bought in February which helped with the back too. I still use it for writing in my notebook every couple of hours.

I stand barefoot on a cheap backpacking foam pad which I cut in half. I keep a pair of flipflops at my desk if I need to run around the office. Every so often I'll do some leg stretches. I'm considering buying a quality antifatigue mat, but I'm making this work for now.

I've been using an Ikea standing desk [1] off and on for a year and a half but most recently all day for the past two months. I definitely feel better overall (energy, alertness, etc) vs sitting. I have a trackball mouse and Kinesis Freestyle 2 keyboard in addition to a raised external monitor and laptop stand for ergonomics. The first two weeks my legs were very tired at the end of the day but now I'm used to it. I have a padded mat and use a chair to kneel on to switch up my posture and shift weight throughout the day. Now that I'm adjusted I don't think I'll ever go back to sitting.

1 - http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Ikea-Standing-desk-for-22-dollars.html

A couple years ago my co-worker and I each built the $22 IKEA standing desk from iamnotaprogrammer.com[1]. We also each got a nice standing mat and stool (about $100 each), and I got a monitor mount (about $50).

It's been excellent. I'd say I spend about half my time standing and half sitting on the stool. For me, rather than losing focus when I'm standing, sometimes I'll just pace around my office a bit, which I've found helps me think a lot, and obviously helps keep the blood flowing and the muscles loose.

[1] http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Ikea-Standing-desk-for-22-dollars.html

I use the one described here ( http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Ikea-Standing-desk-for-22-dollars.html ): an Ikea "Lack" table with a shelf attached to it for the keyboard.

I have a normal laptop stand on the left side of my desk where I set, and one those Lack tables on the right side with a monitor on it. When I want to stand, I just move my keyboard and mouse to the shelf and setup my laptop to use the monitor instead of its own screen.

I think the Lack table also exists in a version that is twice as wide, but I'm not sure.

Just to toss it out there, because I also drool over awesome chairs (and lament their price tag):

I recently picked up a standing desk (geekdesk). I still love my Steelcase, but the standing desk is a bigger improvement on the work day. This isn't even a close fight. I would not hesitate to drop the cash on a standing desk and buy a cheapo chair if that's what the budget dictated.

YMMV, of course. At least try the Ikea standing desk hack (http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Ikea-Standing-desk-for-22-dollars.html) before you jump.