Gadgetory

ergonomics is the study and design of equipment and devices that properly fit the human body it's a big topic but in this video I'll be talking about computer related organ on --ax if you're a computer worker like me and you spend your whole day sitting down in a fixed position you should know that this can lead to all sorts of health problems like a repetitive strain injury and trust me you do not want to get RSI like I did it's really painful more info about that and how I recovered in this video but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure with some economic fixes and changes in behavior you can keep on working or gaming or whatever while minimizing the negative health effects but first please note that everyone is different at six foot three an ergonomic solution for me might not work for someone like Linus because he's short did did you know that Linus has to stand on an Apple box and some of the videos that we make fired worth it so anyway let's start with the monitor the top of your monitor should be right around your eye level the monitor should also be arm's length away from your face but still large enough so that you don't have to lean forward to see things if that makes it hard to read text you can try increasing the text size or UI scale you can even try using a lower than native display resolution but that's kind of a terrible solution you can get special computer viewing glasses which allow your eyes to more easily focus on your monitor reducing eye strain it's the same idea behind reading glasses talk to your optician some people love these but I don't speaking of eye strain make sure your monitor isn't too bright or too dark your screen should match the brightness of the room you're in note that if you're doing color sensitive work you'll still want to properly color calibrate your monitor also be aware if your monitor has a matte or glossy finish glossy monitors can have more vivid colors but they can be hard to see if there are a lot of bright reflections in the room now onto the chair most office chairs already have lumbar support wheels swivel and height adjust all of which is great you may also want a chair that can lean backwards especially with tension adjust and lockable angles by the way we've reviewed a few adjustable chairs on Linus tech tips already you might prefer to have a headrest and it's also nice to have fully adjustable arm rests but if they just get in your way you might want to remove them completely now your keyboard and mouse should be at the same height as your elbows when your shoulders are relaxed with the keyboard tilted slightly away from you lots of economic advice tells you to use a rollout keyboard tray which hangs under the desk which I completely disagree with I prefer to move the entire desk down to that height which allows for so much more room I also like to scoot up as close to my desk as possible so that I can rest my arms on it rather than my arm rests but again your preferred setup will vary and speaking of desks height adjustable desks are great especially the ones that can go from sitting to standing height however it's important to note the mechanism by which this is accomplished you should be able to make the transition in oh I don't know like less than a minute also when it comes to desk space I feel like bigger really is better so what about keyboards well there are lots of different organic keyboards some terrible some amazing more like amazingly expensive I tried the Microsoft natural organ AMA keyboard but then I realized that as a video editor I need to use my right hand on the mouse and my left hand on the whole keyboard for keyboard shortcuts but this split design makes that stupidly difficult a programmer or a writer would have a much better experience you might also find that typing on a mechanical keyboard is easier than a membrane keyboard but keep in mind that there are many different kinds of mechanical keyboard switches as we cover in this video also you might want to consider switching to a colemak or Dvorak keyboard layouts more info in that video and finally the mouse there seem to be an endless selection of weird-looking or economic mice some of them are vertically oriented some of them are at an angle some of them aren't actually mice the Trackman marble has great reviews but I just hated it like scrolling requires a button toggle what this is not good for video editing note that some mice and keyboards have macro buttons which can be wonderful or they might just get in your way wait what's a macro oh look we already made a video about that but most importantly with whatever ergonomic equipment you decide to get you need to fully test your new equipment in the context of your current set-up to make sure it truly works for you for example pedals plus a standing desk probably a bad combination with anything you buy be aware of the return policy and save that receipt now listen I know that not all of you or your employers can afford to drop hundreds perhaps thousands of dollars on fancy new organ a'm equipment but some solutions can cost little to nothing try using boxes as monitor stands use books or wood to raise your desk height use software like autohotkey to turn your numpad or function keys or whatever into macros you're smart enough to MacGyver up something right get creative and beyond reaganomics you can also adjust your behavior getting regular exercise is obviously important for good health but to combat the negative effects of too much sitting you should take frequent small breaks where you just stand up and move around the general consensus is to take micro breaks of 30 to 60 seconds every 15 ish minutes and to take longer five-minute breaks every hour ish yeah there's really not much consensus here there are lots of different options for reminder software which will alert you when it's time for a break and if you want to be more productive while you are working to make up for all those little breaks you should probably be taking check out today's video sponsor lynda.com/latoya has over 3000 video courses to teach you a huge variety of software creative and business skills all taught by industry experts seriously check out this list just keeps going doesn't it all the beginner courses I've taken started from scratch gradually building up a very solid complete understanding of the topic at hand something you just can't get when you're trying to piece things together on your own so invest in yourself and learn something new plan start at just 25 bucks a month and if you go to lynda.com slash tech quickie you can get 10 days for free so thanks to lynda.com for the sponsorship and thank you for watching don't forget to like subscribe share comment all that YouTube stuff because it helps the channel somehow and we'll see you next time