I’ve considered writing a post about the benefits of working from home for RSI sufferers. But it seemed a bit pointless: the benefits are mostly obvious – and if it’s not an option for you, it’s probably not a very useful post. But if you’ve got a sympathetic boss it might be worth discussing, even to do a day a week from home.

Benefits:

• It’s so much easier to get your own setup right at home. Office furniture is terrible. At home I have the perfect setup; a keyboard tray at the correct height; monitors at the correct height. Good chair etc.
• I have all my own ergonomic devices that work for me; various mice/ graphics tablet, goldtouch keyboard
• I have all my exercise tools to hand; powerball, wrist wand, weights.
• Rare that is I can even get completely away from the desk for non computer work, like sketching out a website
• I’m not embarrassed to stand up and do some exercises and stretches or just get away from the computer for a minute
• I think that people factor can be a big one. Just having a different setup etc in an office. It can get quite tiresome in an office every time someone asks you about your strange mouse / keyboard / or what that thing on the screen is telling you to a have  break. Or people telling me my monitors were too high. That was a classic!
• Overall it just seems less stressful working from home.

I’ve definitely had a much better time with RSI since working from home, almost two years now from a combination of everything above and most likely other things I haven’t even considered. Again sorry – if I’m rubbing your nose in it. But if your office is hurting you, it might be an option to request staying away from it now and then. In the very least a change in your setup will do you good.

Seemed topical to write this post today as I have a small spot in an article about working from home in today’s Independant . Was kind of amusing when the photographer came around. First thing he asked me to do was put all keyboard etc up off the keyboard tray beside the monitors. And I did for a second then laughed and had to explain: “Sorry – I actually have a blog about RSI and ergonomics and here I am about to be photographed with the worst setup ever”. He completely understood and we put them back down. Neither did  I want to pose with a laptop. I wouldn’t be caught dead pretending to work on one of those dreaded things.

For a real break from your workstation there’s nothing like a good walk. Mini stretch breaks and microbreaks are great but you really need to get away from your desk completely a few times a day.

You have to get out of that static position your body has been in all day. Repetitive strain is a whole-body injury, don’t be fooled into thinking it’s just your fingers that need a rest.

Make sure to get away from your desk for your whole lunch. If you bring in lunch then leave at least one item (crisps, banana, drink, whatever) and walk to the shops that are furthest away to buy it. Unless you’ve got somewhere really nice to walk, you have to give yourself a reason to walk. Without looking like an insane off-duty marching soldier, try to swing your arms as much as possible. If you always go for lunch with friends, they’ll probably be happy to join in, or just walk a little further every day.

Whatever you do, don’t lunch at your desk clicking through web sites. And don’t even think about playing computer games through lunch ever again.

Extra tip: Use the rest breaks on Workrave so that every time they come on, go and get a glass of water, obviously as far from your desk as possible.

Windows Accessibility is an option in control panel you never go near because you’re not disabled. Then one day you realise you are. If you’re on a PC, open the control panel and click on Accessibility Options. The option I find most useful is called Mousekeys.

Go to the mouse tab and turn on Mousekeys. What it does is turn your keypad into a mouse controller. So you can move your mouse with the arrows – but the main thing I really use it for is clicking the mouse with the number 5. Now and then you find yourself in a situation where you want to keep clicking the mouse without moving it, like a next button on a series of web pages. I’m sure you know that repetitive mouse clicking is really bad and key pressing is a lot easier, so this is where Mousekeys can be really useful.

Tip: Used in conjunction with a foot pedal you can click with your foot. More on that in another post.