Each project arrives with its purpose, milestones and first tasks written out. Here is how the first three read.
Two-week desk discomfort baseline
Before buying a new chair or keyboard, you need to know what actually hurts, when it starts and what you were doing at the time. Two weeks of quick end-of-day ratings for neck, shoulders, wrists, eyes and lower back show whether trouble builds through the day, peaks on long meeting days or follows one particular task, and they give you a before picture to judge every later change against.
First tasks
- Create a discomfort log from the metrics log template
- Add columns for neck, shoulders, wrists, eyes, lower back and notes
- Rate each area from 0 to 10 at the end of every workday for two weeks
- Write a short summary of which areas are worst and when they flare
Workstation body measurements
Furniture guidance only makes sense against your own body: the right seat height depends on your lower leg, the right desk height on your elbows and the right screen height on your seated eye level. Ten minutes with a tape measure and a helper gives you the numbers every later decision in this area uses, from adjusting a chair to buying a desk.
First tasks
- Ask someone to help measure you sitting with feet flat and shoulders relaxed
- Measure seated elbow height, lower leg length and seated eye height
- Measure standing elbow and eye height in your usual work shoes
- Write the target seat, desk and screen heights next to the measurements
Adjusting the chair you already own
Most office chairs have five or six adjustments their owners have never touched, and a mid-range chair set up properly usually beats an expensive one left on factory settings. Working through seat height, seat depth, backrest and lumbar height, armrests and recline tension, in that order, takes half an hour and often removes the need to buy anything at all.
First tasks
- Find the manual or maker's adjustment video for your chair model
- Set seat height so your feet rest flat on the floor
- Adjust seat depth, lumbar height and armrests in that order
- Photograph each lever position once the chair feels right
