Laptop Ergonomics without a Chair

November 14, 2008 11:03 AM

I need to find an ergonomic solution to allow me to work for 8+ hours a day writing code on my laptop. My options are extremely limited because of space - I essentially am stuck siting on the floor or on a couch. A desk + office chair would be nice but it isn't in the cards, neither is a table. Imagine a prison cell with carpet and you'll understand.

If anyone else is in this situation please tell me what you do - I am in way too much pain from not sitting correctly and not having proper support for wrists, etc.

Remember 8+ hours a day, typing all day long on a laptop. I do use the mouse also and not the touch pad so I need to make sure I have something there as well.

I can get a tray or something similar that can fold up.

posted by allenp to computers & internet (22 comments total)

get a folding chair and a folding card table
posted by matteo at 11:07 AM on November 14, 2008

Sit on the floor and use a low coffee table. Shorten the legs or add a wrist support as needed
posted by JimN2TAW at 11:11 AM on November 14, 2008

A TV tray and sitting on the couch might do the trick.
posted by alpha_betty at 11:12 AM on November 14, 2008

There is no ergonomic solution to what you've presented. If the best you can do is the folding tray/couch thing, then at the very least, put a pillow behind your back, and do whatever is necessary to make the tray the right height. Expect pain (somewhere) until you get a proper setup.
posted by sageleaf at 11:25 AM on November 14, 2008

Head to a public library and cadge a free carrel?
posted by woodway at 11:28 AM on November 14, 2008

How a fold-down desk attached to one of the walls? Something like this in combination with a folding chair might work.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 11:29 AM on November 14, 2008

- about -
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 11:29 AM on November 14, 2008

If you continue doing this you may become permanently disabled and you will not be able to write code at all, or even complete everyday tasks like opening jars or lifting boxes. The pain is telling you something. There are a lot of people who wish they had listened to their pain earlier.

If you insist in doing this despite the risks, then the best advice is to use Workrave (Windows/Unix) or AntiRSI (Mac) to enforce frequent breaks. If you have a history of wrist pain I would recommend a 30 s break every 5 min and a 5 min break every 30 min.

Don't mess around with this stuff.
posted by grouse at 11:34 AM on November 14, 2008 [2 favorites]

Strangely enough while reading this question, an advertisement for this came up. Horray for contextual ads
posted by Scientifik at 11:36 AM on November 14, 2008

Get 2 milk crates and a big piece of wood. You now have a floor-level desk that can be stowed away fairly easily. Get an additional 2-4 milk crates and you have a sofa-level desk depending upon how you stack them. You can also store things in the milk crates.

That's assuming that money and space are your constraints. If it's just space, perhaps something like this ergo desk. (I found it googling "laptop stand")
posted by K.P. at 11:37 AM on November 14, 2008

First, take some time to learn the the mechanisms of RSI, as well as the principles of good ergonomy. Read my page on RSI, then read the MIT RSI Center page in its entirety.

Your expressions "I am in way too much pain" suggests to me that you have already damaged your wrists beyond what is recoverable with day-by-day adjustments. You effectively have inflicted upon yourself a joint injury of similar severity to that of a nasty ankle sprain. You have to take action accordingly, and that mean stop typing and go see a doctor.

If you keep typing, and even if you do it with near-perfect ergonomics, you will be in effect playing with injured tissues as they are trying to establish the repair lattice, which will mess things up real quickly. In a span of one or two weeks, if you insist in typing through the pain, your wrists will lose their ability to heal and you will be stuck with a permanent disability. This is serious stuff. Be careful. Take time off until you have healed and the pain is gone.

Once you are out of convalescence, install a typing break timer such as Workrave and learn to apply the 5-degrees rule for wrists (read the links) and you should be fine, even when typing while sitting on the floor.

But do promise you will take the time to heal first. Go see a doctor now.
posted by gmarceau at 11:44 AM on November 14, 2008 [3 favorites]

put a pillow on your lap, and the laptop on the pillow
posted by blue_beetle at 11:45 AM on November 14, 2008

I tried to do this recently, volunteering on the Obama thing. Even with a super-tiny asus laptop, it was impossible. And impossible to do any significant work. So I rented a hotel room. I really don't have a better solution, and my body is still suffering badly from trying to do this for several days on a couch.
posted by orthogonality at 11:51 AM on November 14, 2008

Have you considered some arrangement where you can spend part of your time standing?

A fold down shelf attached to the wall at the right height could help.
posted by Good Brain at 12:11 PM on November 14, 2008

put a pillow on your lap, and the laptop on the pillow

...only if you can do so without blocking any air vents.
posted by Mike1024 at 12:54 PM on November 14, 2008

I built myself something like this and it works pretty well if you set it up so the edge of the "desk" part is only just above your belly (you can lie on your back and don't have to lift your elbows to type)

There's a DIY set of instructions somewhere.
posted by bonobothegreat at 1:16 PM on November 14, 2008

I worked in a big leather recliner all summer very comfortably by placing a 30" x 8" piece of finish plywood across the arms as a desk for my MacBook Air. Does the couch have arms?
posted by nicwolff at 2:07 PM on November 14, 2008

This may or may not be feasible for you, but my default workspace's "chair" is a piece of memory foam. It's nice and cushy, and gives me more choices of posture than a chair would.
posted by spaceman_spiff at 2:41 PM on November 14, 2008

put a pillow on your lap, and the laptop on the pillow

...only if you can do so without blocking any air vents.

The way to do this is: put pillow on your lap and put a large plastic cutting board on top of pillow, then laptop on top of cutting board. I do this when I'm sitting in my recliner and using my laptop.
posted by marsha56 at 3:29 PM on November 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

I read your question too fast and missed that you already had pain. Nthing people who say to take it very seriously. I had bad computer-and-posture habits, ignored a few warning signs, then one day it hit me like a bomb. I spent a long time on heavy-duty painkillers, wrestling with voice-recognition software, two-finger typing and barely able to carry dishes or open vacuum-packed foods. Had to make a radical career change to something much less lucrative.

A friend of mine from college is still, after several years, on diability and struggles with household chores. Don't ignore the RSI-warning signs. Take it very seriously.
posted by K.P. at 3:41 PM on November 14, 2008

Laptops put the keyboard adjacent to the display. By its very design this means a laptop can never provide an ergonomic workspace. You need that display at eye level and the keyboard down in you lap.

Still, I sit on a buckwheat zafu at home and often have the computer on the coffee table in front of me. A zafu can be pretty comfy once you get used to it.
posted by chairface at 4:32 PM on November 14, 2008

After you've dealt with the RSI, get a separate USB keyboard. This will give you the ability to design a much less unergonomic working space.
posted by flabdablet at 6:56 PM on November 14, 2008