May 5, 2026 • 40 mins
For all our schooling, no one ever taught us the best way to sit. Also, no one told us the ideal office temperature for maximum productivity. Or explained why cracking jokes might be helpful for elevating status in the workplace. And certainly none of our professors told us why writing in the nude is a great hack for hitting deadlines. To bridge these important educational gaps, today Will and Mango explore all the very best ways to work. (Note: the answer may involve Amtrak.)
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This episode originally aired on August 9, 2024.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to Part Time Genius, a production of Kaleidoscope,
and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
What's that? Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
So I had a big writing assignment last week, and
I was not nearly as productive as I should have been.
I procrastinated, I got distracted, and I kind of pushed
off the assignment for way too long.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I like that you're leaving out one key fact that
you were actually supposed to be on vacation last week.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I know, but I'd set aside a few hours so
that I could keep some projects on track. And then
I missed my deadline. So I started doing what I
always do when i'm behind. I looked up tricks for
how to work better, and I stumbled into this old
chestnut about how Victor Hugo used to make sure he
didn't procrastinate. Basically, whenever he got writer's block, he'd have
(00:53):
his servant take all his clothes away and leave him
with only a pen and paper, so we had nothing
to do but write in the nude, which I guess
is how he hit all his deadlines.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
And also sounds a little bit extreme if you ask me.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah, But one thing I've been wondering about is whether
it was the fact that he was stuck in his
house without clothes that made him write, or whether it
was actually being nude that put him in the mood
to do the writing and inspired him. Like Hemingway wrote
Nude at a standing desk. Ben Franklin famously took airbats
where you'd wake up early, you know, sit by a
drafty window and feel invigorated to journal before going back
(01:30):
to bed for sort of a wonderful sleep. Churchill Agatha
Christie both worked from the back. So there are a
lot of these folks.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Wow. But for all our listeners, just to know you
you are not only working right now, but you are
fully closed as we record. So I'm thankful for that.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yeah. Well, you know, I'm too Victorian to work in
the nude, even in my own house. But hearing those
facts made me wonder what are the best ways to work?
So that's what this episode is all about. Let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Mangesh hot Ticketter and sitting behind that big booth
manning the mixing board, doing it like none other and
actually today he's truly doing it like none other. I
think he's on a Nordic track. Is that what that is?
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah? I guess some people work from standing desks and
some people use treadmill dust, but Dylan has decided he's
most productive when he's cross country skiings.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know what, there's sometimes I
question what Dylan's doing, but this actually feels on brand
for him. It seems to makes sense for him. But anyway, mego.
You and our researcher Mary Phillip Sandy came up with
the topic for this week's episode, and it's all about
what are the best ways to work? So let's talk
about that.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah, and today's episode is kind of a jumble of things.
Mary and I were brainstorming big questions we could answer
for the show, and she was like, there are so
many little things I don't know, Like I sit all
day and I don't know what's the best way to sit.
And of course, you know, at the time, I was
crossed like it on my bed, and you know, I
had a cramped neck from hunching forward. So of course
(03:24):
that's one of the things I wanted to know. But
we thought with so many people working from home now,
it might be helpful to hear about everything from some
productivity tips to how to sit to how far you
need to place your laptop screen from your Nordic track
for ultimate comfort.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Glad we're going to be giving that tip. So all right,
let's figure out where where do we want to start
here today?
Speaker 1 (03:46):
How about with ergonomics, which is such a clunky and
weird word. But what do you think when you hear
the word ergonomics.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
You know, as soon as you said it, I kind
of pictured those wavy keyboards that people started using in nineties,
or an office full of yoga ball chairs, like we
saw so many of these, how quickly these took over
actually our office for a while back in Mental Fluss.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
It was like overnight. It was like an epidemic, Like
suddenly everyone was either at a standing desk or a
yoga ball and I just kept sitting at a normal
desk with a swivel chair, just like a rube.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
But it's embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
I was thinking about those giant mouse rollerballs that you know,
I don't even know if you remember these, but they
were like red arcade ball like controllers almost, and they'd
sit in the middle of something that kind of looked
like a tiny Tesla truck. But I was also thinking
about like the first time I'd seen it in my lifetime.
I remember that my dad brought home this Swedish ergonomic
(04:41):
chair for our computer in the eighties. It had no
back and you kind of kneel into it, and every
single kid who came to my house commented on how
weird it was. But the whole idea was it was
supposed to make you sit straight and be better for
your posture. So, you know, obviously ergonomics has been a
thing in our lifetime, but I actually had no idea
how old the discipline is.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
And because I have no idea, I think you're baiting
me into asking you this question. But how old are
we talking about here?
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah? I like how you picked off on a queue there.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we really work well together.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Mary pulled this research for me from the Berkeley School
of Public Health website, and apparently ergonomics states back to
four hundred BCE, all the way back to the ancient Greeks,
so just a little before the nineteen eighties when my
dad was Swedish kneeling at his tandy or whatever. But
According to the site quote, archaeologists have found drawings and
(05:34):
paintings of chairs with contrad backs and hand tools that
resemble designs we still use today, which you know is
really remarkable. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I mean, it's funny to think about, like a stone
bench with an indentation for your butt to be considered ergonomics,
but I guess it makes sense, right, Like if you're
gonna sit comfortably, it makes sense to kind of contour
it more to your body.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, And apparently Hippocrates got into the action as well.
He wrote about how to arrange surgeons tos for optimal
workflow during surgery. So really, we've been thinking about how
best to do our work for a very long time,
but for our stories purposes. The real study of work
begins in the seventeenth century, and this is when an
Italian doctor named Bernardino Ramazzini, which you know is a
(06:16):
great name. For the first time, perhaps he begins to
notice patterns that certain types of work brings certain pains, right,
and he begins looking at why workers are suffering from
various ailments. He starts by visiting their workplaces, observing how
they work, and then he does all these interviews to
understand how their work is affecting their bodies, and this
(06:40):
is in seventeen hundred. He publishes his observations in a
book called The Diseases of the Workers.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
So if this was seventeen hundred, like, what type of
work is he studying here?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
He studies over one hundred professions and it's everything from
bakers and miller's to fishermen, to stonecutters to glassmakers. He's
also in including athletes and singers. It is surprisingly comprehensive,
and he starts to notice how various violent motions or
irregular motions, and also waits that these workers are carrying
(07:12):
daily how that's taking a toll across various classes of workers.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
So would he be considered like the father of ergonomics.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Then he's more considered the father of occupational medicine. And
his contribution is mostly in linking repetitive work to pains
and disorders, but it is interesting he also notes the
mental stresses on people who are doing things like accounting work.
These people have to get the numbers right to keep
their jobs, and so there's immense pressure on them. And
he's also looking at things like environmental conditions, so he
(07:42):
notices the breathing difficulties that Millers get and the asthma
that they get from all these powders and things in
the air. And he's quoted as saying it's far better
to prevent than to cure, So he's really ahead of
his time.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
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in the episode description. But to your question about ergonomics,
the word ergonomics gets coined in the eighteen fifties, and
this is by a Polish author and it kind of
means the science of work or laws of work, and
it isn't really until about one hundred years later that
it takes on its current meaning of fitting a job
(10:55):
to a person or a body. But before we get
into that, I want to talk briefly about the concept
of business management, which arose in the late eighteen hundreds
and it is really fascinating to me. So this is
during the Industrial Revolution, or at least impacted by it
when industrialization becomes synonymous with work and just stay with
me here because it feels like a tangent, but it's not.
(11:18):
Industrials were interested in the idea of efficiency, right, but
it wasn't like they wanted to protect workers from these
repetitive stress injuries. As businessmen, their goal was really to
extract as much value as possible from workers and kind
of treating their bodies like machines, making the most of
their bodies. And one consultant who helps figure out how
(11:39):
to do this is a guy named Frederick W. Taylor
who basically believes that workers can always be made to
produce more and less time with less motion.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Wow, always be made to So he's kind of a
nightmare boss.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yeah. His work is basically going to take any remaining
power out of the worker's hands and place it in
the hands of the bosses. At the time, they call
it quote scientific manager, right, that's the term for it,
and later they refer to this practice as tailorism. But basically,
these efficiency engineers, as they were called, we're trying to
figure out the one best way to do every task
the quickest and the way they studied This is really incredible.
(12:15):
This comes from an article in Jacobin magazine and goes, quote,
it's hard to overstate how far efficiency engineers went to
measure and survey of workers' bodies. They use stopwatches, photographed
and film workers, and tied light bulbs to workers fingers
in order to trace hand movements across long exposure photographs.
One engineer, Frank Gilbert, disaggregated each finger, shoulder, and foot,
(12:39):
plotting individual movements in units in the thousandth of a minute.
So yeah, I mean, the observation is intense, and they're
collecting immen's data, and they are analyzing every part of
every single mechanical task.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
That is wild. And so what do they do with
all this data?
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Basically, they're getting paid to make a company more profitable, right,
so they walk the employees through these studies and point
out their inefficiencies and show them how to work faster. Basically,
they fire anyone who refuses or can't keep up. But
because these are upper class men, they're also trying to
tamp down any class conflicts or resentments that could arise,
and they're trying to ease this transition into getting people
(13:19):
to work harder. So they push for pay bonuses based
on worker efficiency, and workers are incentivized to work faster,
and that way the workers are at least a little
happier and managers get more product, which they see as
a win win, I.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Mean, I guess so. But obviously these bonuses aren't so
big that anybody's getting rich here, right.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
The workers can do a little better, but their bodies
are going to take a toll for it. And there's
an interesting side note here that a bunch of the
more skilled workers start to push back. As the Jacobin
article points out, quote the diversion experiences of machinists and
shovelers was pretty illustrative. So the shovelers were less organized
and easier to replace, and they were really pushed to
(13:59):
the limit by the efficiency experts. One study from the
time actually showed that they ended up heaving two hundred
and seventy percent more tonnage than before the consultants arrived. Wow,
so they're working their tails off. It is brutal and
its backbreaking work. And meanwhile, the machinists actually has some leverage.
They kind of hold their trade secrets close to them
(14:20):
and they unionize their response and this ends up protecting
them because when managers try to control them, they act
collectively and can better dictate terms. Anyway, this all leads
back to ergonomics.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I'm glad you say that, because I was just about
to ask that.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yeah. So, as tailorism and this mechanization of the human
body was taking place, workers want to avoid being fatigued
all the time and they want to protect their health.
So in the nineteen twenties, researchers start making the case
for more humane work and not burning out your workforce.
There's this conference in Russia, but this movement takes off
(14:56):
all over and you know, this more humane work is
called ergology, which later becomes ergonomics, which you know later
translates into offices that are wall to wall with yoga
ball chairs.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Finally we got there. Was that was worth it? Though, Manga.
That was actually very interesting, and I know there's more
story to get to, but I also know we're talking
about the best ways to work, and one thing that
people definitely want to know is some definitive answer on
how to sit and not destroy their bodies, because you
hear so much about the damage that it does to
sit for so long.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah, so I'm glad you took this on because I'm
very curious about this, so tell me.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Well, one of the first places to go to if
you're thinking about anything health related is the Mayo Clinic.
So I decided to go to the website and look
at the guidelines there. Now, before you start working, you'll
want to pull out a tape measure and possibly a
protractor if you don't know what a right angle is,
or if you've got those ready, I'll continue here. One,
your knees should be about level with the hips when
you are seated with your thighs parallel to the floor,
(15:56):
so clearly sitting on a high stool or a bean
bag is not deal. Two, your hands should be at
or below elbow level with the wrist straight. Three. If
your desk has a hard edge, you should pad the
edge to protect your wrist from the contact stress. So
this includes laptops, like if you're resting your wrist on
a hard laptop, you'll want padding there. And for if
(16:18):
you're using a monitor, that should be no closer to
you than twenty inches and no further away than forty inches,
and you'll want the top of the screen to be
at or slightly below eye level. Now I have to
admit when I read many of these things, I violated
almost every single one of them.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
I also have no idea how far my computer screen
is for me.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Yeah, on that at air inches, I don't know about you.
Like on a table, I can do it, but air
inches is not my specialty.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
I also feel like I assume it must be like
twenty to forty inches from my face at all times,
but except when I don't have my glasses on and
then it's pressed up against my face. Is that distance
for your eyesight or is it for neckond posture reasons?
Why is that distance so important?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
It actually prevents both eyestrain and next strain. Though, if
you're looking to protect your eyes, the other thing you're
supposed to do is follow the twenty twenty twenty rules.
So this is where every twenty minutes, you're supposed to
take a twenty second break to look at an object
twenty feet away. This rule was developed by an optometrist
from California name Jeffrey Anshell, and this was a way
(17:26):
to help people avoid headaches and eyestrain. But you can
also close your eyes for twenty seconds and that has
a similar kind of effect.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Twenty seconds doesn't feel like long enough, Like, yeah, that's
almost teasing my brain into thinking it's taking a nap.
We've covered angles you should sit at and how far
your screen should be from your face, but what about
the whole like sitting standing, treadmill desk argument, Like, what's
the optimal way to work on that front?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
You know, the ideal seems to be alternating between sitting
and standing, because sitting for too long or being sedentary
and increases your risk for a whole host of different diseases,
I mean everything from Parkinson's two strokes, to cancers, to
diabetes to Alzheimer's. Like it's really as interesting looking at
the list and terrifying at this list of you know,
sort of tied back to this.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
It's so scary like that sitting for long periods can
increase your chances of getting six So how much do
I have to alternate?
Speaker 2 (18:21):
For this? You'll need to turn to the International Ergonomics
and Human Factors Association, which I don't think you knew
a whole lot about before this episode, and they recommend
sitting for ten minutes, then standing up for five, and
then repeating that throughout the day. So yeah, not too bad.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
First of all, please don't make any assumptions, because that
is my homepage. I could.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, you're right, I shouldn't have assumed.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
But I also don't know how you're supposed to remember
to do that like all the time. Like I feel
like the only way I could remember is if my
desk automatically lifted and lowered like every five and ten minutes.
It just feels kind of impractical. Plus you've got to
close your eyes or look twenty feet away every twenty minute,
so like none of those numbers really line up.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's interesting. I mean, if you can't
pull off the ten minutes sitting, five minutes standing routine,
there's an alternative that can help your workflow. You can
work for twenty minutes, take a two minute active break.
That's like second best option here. But when you do that,
you can also close your eyes for the first twenty
seconds or just naturally look around. But hopefully you're not
(19:24):
taking this active break and closing your eyes for the
first twenty seconds, because that seems dangerous as well.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I also like that you've ranked these, like I guess
I've got a whole list, right, I'm going to go
with option too, But is there a third place? The
truth is like if you're writing or researching, I feel
like you get in a flow and then you just
forget about the time.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yeah, I mean it actually would be good to make
time for that two minute break, just because it's helpful
for anyone with a history of diabetes in the family,
and I know you have some in the family as well.
And according to the site, getting up more frequently can
quote lower your post prandial glucose and insulin levels, which
means that avoiding sitting for long periods of time can
(20:04):
actually be an effective way of reducing the risk of
type two diabetes.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
That's amazing and I wonder you know, as people started
adapting more to this information, if it's like during the SATs,
we'll see kids just standing up in the middle of
a section and running in place to keep their diabetes away.
It kind of makes sense.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Well, there's one other suggestion if you can't keep standing
at work or take frequent breaks, and that's the stop,
drop and flop go.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
I love the branding. What's the stop, drop and flop.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
So it's exactly what it sounds like. After you send
an email or finish a task. You stop what you're doing,
let your shoulders drop, flop your hands down by your sides,
and give yourself a little bit of a stretch break.
But actually, let's talk a little bit more about sitting,
because we all know we do this a lot, or
many of us do this a lot as we're working.
So let's talk about how to best sit for optimal help.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Yeah, I'm guessing sitting cross legged on stools and chair
with my laptop on my lap probably isn't the best way.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Yeah, I actually don't see anybody advocating for that, and
I'm guilty of it as well. I mean, the bottom
line is that chairs are complicated. So I was looking
at self dot com. They interviewed a board certified physical
therapist and an orthopedic specialist about this very topic. And
there are just a lot of components here, but mostly
you want a firm, flat cushion chair, good lombar support,
(21:26):
Like a lot of really nice cushiony chairs have that
seat tilted upward in the front, and that actually puts
stress on your spine and tilts your pelvis backwards.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Which isn't that kind of like how we all drive.
I guess that's bad for long periods of time.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Yeah, it's straining the wrong parts. Like basically, you want
to be sitting upright with a straight back, so not
leaning forwards or backwards, because tilting either way puts pressure
on your shoulders and on your neck. And according to
this same piece, you also want to scoot your bottom
all the way to the back of the chair because,
as the article says, otherwise, you will be sitting on
(22:01):
your sacrament, stressing your back.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
So how do you know if you're sitting right?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Well, basically, if you're upright, your feet are on the floor,
your hips are square, and you're not tilting forward, then
you're doing it.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Right, which sounds like sticking of perfect landing and gymnastics
or something. It feels like exactly chairs some instribute its
own sport. But I feel like we've been chatting for
a bit and I am overdue for my stop, drop
and flop, which I do all the time now, So
why don't we take a two minute break and we'll
be back with more part Time Genius after these commercials.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're discussing the
very best ways to work now that you're all stretched
and relaxed. You've taken a twenty second micro nap. What
do you want to talk about?
Speaker 1 (22:56):
You know, I'm feeling so refresh and not diabetic right now,
so that's great. But as we were researching this episode,
I was looking up ergonomic keyboards and I found the
Stranger's keyboard. It is a vertical keyboard and it's supposed
to eliminate any strain on your wrist.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
And how does that work exactly? I'm looking at it now.
This is wild.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Yeah, So for everyone listening, Basically the image I'm showing
Will is it's like if you took a keyboard cut
in half and then flip the sides up like a drawbridge,
so the keys are kind of facing out on either
side of your monitor. The idea is that if your
arms are straight out in front of you, the way
you slow dance in sixth grade, or at least the
way I slow dance in sixth grade off and you're
(23:38):
typing vertically reduces that strain. It's almost like you're shaking
hands with a keyboard.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
And that's supposed to help.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
I guess because your hand's aren't resting on a hard surface,
you're you're less likely to get that wrist strain. And
also the vertical keyboard has these cushions or padding to
rest the heel of your hand, so it should be
more comfortable.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
I don't know why the halves of the keyboard have
to be so far apart. Just look at this picture.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
I guess if they were closer, you'd look like mister
Burns twiddling his fingers.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
As you type, which seems to me the goal.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
I love this futuristic kind of stuff, Like as a kid,
other than on the jetsons, I could never have imagined
people typing books on treadmills or like taking naps and
giant eggs at work. And it'll be so fun to
see how work changes in like the next twenty or
thirty years.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Oh definitely, Like they're already projections of keypads instead of
real keyboard so you can just type in the air,
and people working from self driving cars with Wi Fi
like it feels commonplace now, but this would blow the
minds of people thirty or forty years ago.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah. So I know you have some tips on how
to increase productivity, not in a tailorism way, more in
how to get things done way. But before we go
to that, why don't we talk about two very different
ergonomic chairs. So the first one I want to talk
about is for pilots, and it comes from a paper
from a journal called Science, Technology, and Human Values, but
(25:00):
it's about military cockpit design. So basically, in World War two,
ergonomics really started becoming a discipline, and it was important
to the armed forces, especially because to operate this machinery
correctly and safely and also with some regularity, you kind
of needed to build things like tanks and planes and
things to human specifications. So the term human engineering comes about,
(25:23):
and the engineers were really smart about this. To make
sure people could easily operate leg and hand controls and
see all the gauges and displays, they came up with
five critical drivers. They looked at the height of someone sitting,
they looked at functional arm reach, leg length, buttock to
knee length, and weight, and they basically designed a cockpit
(25:45):
that could both safely be operated from and that could
safely eject you if you were taller than five percent
of the male population. So the idea was that basically
everyone from the fifth percentile all the way through the
ninety fifth percentile of men in the country could operate
these machines pretty effectively, and it's kind of a landmark
in ergonomic innovation. Here you've got this beautiful new plane
(26:07):
where the dials and gages and buttons and steering wheel
are all perfectly within reach for most of the population.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Except I mean, what about the women here?
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Exactly? They designed this for men above a certain height,
but at thirty four inches sitting height, which is what
they were using, that excluded close to seventy percent of
the female population because according to the paper, only approximately
the sixty fifth through ninety fifth percentile female could operate
the machinery. So weirdly, mass producer ergonomics have this greater
(26:37):
implication on society.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Which I guess isn't that surprising, Like if you think
about the right handed scissors, that's excluding ten percent of
the population right there.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yeah. But it's even worse than that because since commercial
aviation basically copied all their design and engineering from the military,
there was what's called ergonomic bias spillover, and that goes
into commercial airlines. As the paper notes, quote, it is
not that women are not physically capable of flying these
particular aircraft. Rather, the technical artifact has functioned to delineate
(27:08):
the other.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
So what's the other ergonomic chair you wanted to talk about?
Speaker 1 (27:12):
So that one's kind of on the opposite end of
the spectrum, and it's the guy who built the first
modern ergonomic chair, a German Man named Frederick Wilhelm Dauphin.
And it's nineteen sixty eight and he's hired by a
British company as a consultant to look at how the
computer is going to impact office furniture and he's supposed
to advise them on production. But the company, I'm not
(27:33):
sure whether it's funding or what, but they can't execute
his vision. So he and his wife really believe in
this idea of human centered design. So they do what
all great startups do. They start tinkering in their garage
back in Bavaria, and they designed this very affordable chair
that has cutting edge ergonomics. It's a chair where you
can adjust the height and back and it offers incredible
(27:54):
posture support. He also creates the first synchronized mechanism for chairs,
which I had to look up what men. It's when
you tilt the back of your chair like twenty degrees,
the seapan of the chair doesn't go back the full
twenty degrees. It only moves like five or ten degrees,
so you still feel like you're reclining, but you don't
feel like you're going to tip back. And that's kind
of standard on all chairs now. But the big thing
(28:16):
for Dolphin and his wife Elkie, who was his partner
in this, was to make sure that these things were
stylish and affordable but also tailored to individual needs. So
the adjusting the height was really important to him from
the start. And that's kind of the opposite of the
cockpit chair, which was kind of one size fits all,
but really it was one size fits most men and
(28:38):
some women. Anyway, this chair just takes off and revolutionizes
office furniture across Europe and Americas, and today they are
still producing about seventeen hundred office chairs every single day.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Wow, that's pretty amazing. All right, Well, we've talked about
how to sit, how to rest your eyes, when to stand,
when to flop, But why don't we go through a
few quick tips on getting stuff done?
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Great, you know I'm always looking for productivity tips.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
I know you are, except I'm going to quiz you here.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Great, you know I'm always looking for quizzes.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
So okay, good, good, good, all right? So hot or cold?
What is better for your office temperature?
Speaker 1 (29:16):
I mean personally, like my dad's from Goa and India's
which is the beach. So you know I don't love
the cold, so I'd go with hot.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
All right. Well you are one for one. Being too
cold makes it harder to get things done. This comes
from Fast Company, But Cornell actually did a study in
an insurance office and when the temperature was low, like
sixty eight degrees, employees committed forty four percent more errors
than when the thermostat was set to seventy seven degrees.
But warm temps are actually better for office politics too.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
How's that? So?
Speaker 2 (29:49):
The article goes on to say that there was a
study in science where psychologists found that when people feel cold,
their quote more likely to perceive others as less generous
and hearing, and that the same area of the brain
that lights up when we sense temperature, aka the insular cortex,
is also active when we feel trust and empathy toward
(30:10):
another person. So basically, when we experience warmth, we experience trust.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Oh that's fascinating and such a good argument to my
wife why we have to keep the temperatures toasty? In
our house whenever I'm working. So what's next?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
All right, Well, how about having someone on a screen
doing their work but kind of watching you aka the
new trend of body doubling.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
You know, I hate when people look over my shoulder
or watch me work, even when working in like Google docs,
when someone else is in the dock. It feels like
such an adjustment for me. So I'll guess not helpful.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Well, it might not be helpful for you, but it's
actually a great hack for people with ADHD. Like this
is how an ADHD therapist named Billy Roberts explained it. Quote.
ADHD is a disorder of executive functioning, the part of
the brain that controls concentration, attention, activation of task, effort
on task, and self control, to name a few. Having
(31:06):
a person present during a less desirable task might increase
the joy surrounding that task, similar to listening to empowering
music while working, he says, and having another person there
also makes you accountable, so you're less likely to procrastinate. Apparently,
having a study buddy or this type of virtual body
doubling helps people with ADHD by increasing their dopamine levels.
(31:28):
And there are lots of websites and apps that help
you find a body double.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Body doubling sounds like such a sci fi term, you know,
but that is really interesting. Also, it makes me feel
a little guilty because both Lizzie and Henry are super
adhd and when we're both working from home, Lizzie always
suggests working from the same room and I'm just like,
you know, I'm good from over here. But it kind
of gives me more empathy as they're doing their work.
(31:53):
What else you got?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
All right? Last one afternoon coffees? What do you think?
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Ah, this is tough. I can see an argument either way,
but maybe skip them.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Yeah. The latest research, and this is coming from psychology today,
is that afternoon coffee confuses the brain, tricking your body
into thinking it has more energy than it does. As
the article points out, basically, it's pushing your body into
overdrive and taxing its resources, which is what makes you crash,
and the dependence throws off your biorrhythms. Like this is
(32:25):
whole domino effect where you get worse sleep, which curbs
your ability to de stress and causes inflammation.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
I love the idea that coffee throws off your bi rhythms,
but like sitting for ten minutes, standing for five, and
closing your eyes every twenty minutes is actually better for
your health. YEP, I do really want to be healthier.
So I'm sure this will all be in my head
for a week. But I'm guessing I will do none
of these things except raise the thermostat in my house.
But you know what will definitely make me feel better.
(32:55):
How about a little fact off.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Let's do it all right, So bosses should appreciate their
workers working from home, but you know who doesn't cats.
According to an article on Mental Floss, cats are creatures
of habit, so they like set patterns. So when people
(33:18):
started working from home during the pandemic and no one
had really run this by the cats, their routines got disrupted. Also,
the article points out that they pick up on the
emotions and vibes, so chaos from kids who had been
at school, or you being allowed on a zoom or
whatever it might have been, that was a change that
also affects them. But eventually they will come around to
(33:40):
the new routine. But the most interesting thing to me
about the article was that it advises when you go
back to the office, you don't want to deeply upset
your cat, So to help them adjust to this new routine,
you should wake up at the time you're planning to
go in and start leaving the house for longer periods
of time so they can adjust to the new routine.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
It's funny. It sounds more like you're trying to please
a roommate than a pet. So here's another quick one
that happens to evolve dogs. Do you know that workers
comp can apply to work from home injuries? In twenty eleven,
and Oregon court ruled that an interior designer was eligible
for workers comp after she tripped on her dog while
(34:21):
moving fabric samples to her garage.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
It is insane, that's wild, all right. Well, I think
a lot of us have heard of the Pomodoro technique.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yeah, that's what where you use a timer to focus
on a task for like twenty five minutes at a time,
and you take little breaks after each one of those sets. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
I mean it was already kind of a thing, and
then it got more popular during lockdown. But I didn't
realize it was created by a college kid in the
nineteen eighties. So apparently the student Francesco Cirillo, who was
having a hard time focusing, so he kind of challenged
himself to study or work for ten minutes at a time,
and he found one of those vintage tomato shaped timers
you can see and kitch aka the pomodoro, and he
(35:02):
formed this technique. The other thing I didn't realize is
that even though the technique is super simple, he actually
kept building out different parts and suggestions for the method,
and he wrote this one hundred and thirty page book
about it, which led him to this long career as
an efficiency consultant for everyone from software engineers to F
one teams.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
That's pretty amazing. So I am trying to keep all
of mine quick today. So here's another snappy one. Do
you know that slack is actually an acronym? It stands
for a searchable log of all conversation and knowledge?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Wait? Is that real? Did you just make that up?
Speaker 1 (35:38):
But no, it's true.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
I had no idea. Well, there's a lot of talk
about napping being good for you and how it benefits
everyone from pilots to astronauts to creatives, but apparently napping
was particularly popularized by the early Romans, who loved a
sexta aura, meaning a sleep in the sixth hour of
a waking day, which became known as the cs Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Oh, I love cstas so much in India. The fact
that you like nap and have this quiet break after
a lunch and then wake up and have tea and snacks.
It's like my body is built for that. I'm gonna
go slightly longer on this one, but there are a
number of studies on laughter in the office place, and
apparently people who laughed at a comedy clip and then
(36:21):
we're asked to do math problems in a lab, we're
ten percent more productive than those who didn't, which, you know,
I thought was interesting. But the other thing I thought
was fascinating is that people who crack successful jokes are
better perceived. So, according to a Harvard Business School professor
Alison Woodbrooks, presenters who make successful jokes are quote perceived
(36:43):
as more confident, more confident, and higher in status.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
I like that you said successful jokes, not just not
just any joke.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah. According to the study, it's more sweet jokes that
are confidently presented versus you know, Michael Scott type jokes
that are inappropriate.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Actually, I could see that that makes sense. All right, Well,
here's one that's kind of fun to end on, at
least for me. So Amtrak's Quiet Car has a huge
following of loyal travelers and people who swear by how
much they can get done on it. But one thing
I didn't realize is that it was actually an idea
that came about from commuters. In an interview in Fortune,
the company's former chief marketing officer explained how basically cell
(37:23):
phone chatter was ubiquitous on trains, and this group of
regular commuters begged the conductor to set aside a noise
free zone, and as soon as he did, the idea
took off, and Amtrak expanded the Quiet Car to its
entire fleet. But if you look up Amtrak's Quiet Car online,
you can find that people have written odes and poetry
to it, and they're fanatical about it. And so I
(37:45):
thought i'd end with this quote from a Yahoo Travel
story in praise of the Quiet Car. Here's how it reads.
As a proud member of the Quiet Car Nation, I
will admit that we may be overzealous in our efforts
to preserve, protect, and defend it, but that's for good reason.
In this hyper connected world, the Quiet Car is one
of the few places we have left where we are
(38:05):
out of reach of our busy home, social, and work lives.
Here we can sit with like minded people enjoying our
silent utopia and just be so. Let us celebrate the
quiet car, the last bastion of civilized travel. Let us
cherish it, let us protect it. Let us sing its praises,
just not too loudly.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Oh I like that, and I feel like it needs
like patriotic music behind it as you give that speech.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
I don't know how I can't give this to you,
So I'm going to silently hand over this week's trophy.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
I love it. I felt good about ending on that one.
All right, Well, that's it for this week's Part Time Genius.
Now remember, if you like our show, please rate it review.
It makes us so happy to know you people are listening. Also,
we love hearing from you, but more importantly, our moms
love hearing from you, and they have loved so many
of the notes that have come in recently, so right
to us at ptgeniusmomsatgmail dot com. Our moms always passed
(39:01):
these amazing messages along from Dylan, Mango, Mary and me.
Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
This show is hosted by Will Pearson and me Mongash
Heatikler and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy.
Today's episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan
Fagan with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive
produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with
(39:42):
social media support from Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and
Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
You're listening to Part Time Genius, a production of Kaleidoscope,
and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
What's that? Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
So I had a big writing assignment last week, and
I was not nearly as productive as I should have been.
I procrastinated, I got distracted, and I kind of pushed
off the assignment for way too long.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I like that you're leaving out one key fact that
you were actually supposed to be on vacation last week.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I know, but I'd set aside a few hours so
that I could keep some projects on track. And then
I missed my deadline. So I started doing what I
always do when i'm behind. I looked up tricks for
how to work better, and I stumbled into this old
chestnut about how Victor Hugo used to make sure he
didn't procrastinate. Basically, whenever he got writer's block, he'd have
(00:53):
his servant take all his clothes away and leave him
with only a pen and paper, so we had nothing
to do but write in the nude, which I guess
is how he hit all his deadlines.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
And also sounds a little bit extreme if you ask me.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah, But one thing I've been wondering about is whether
it was the fact that he was stuck in his
house without clothes that made him write, or whether it
was actually being nude that put him in the mood
to do the writing and inspired him. Like Hemingway wrote
Nude at a standing desk. Ben Franklin famously took airbats
where you'd wake up early, you know, sit by a
drafty window and feel invigorated to journal before going back
(01:30):
to bed for sort of a wonderful sleep. Churchill Agatha
Christie both worked from the back. So there are a
lot of these folks.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Wow. But for all our listeners, just to know you
you are not only working right now, but you are
fully closed as we record. So I'm thankful for that.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yeah. Well, you know, I'm too Victorian to work in
the nude, even in my own house. But hearing those
facts made me wonder what are the best ways to work?
So that's what this episode is all about. Let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Mangesh hot Ticketter and sitting behind that big booth
manning the mixing board, doing it like none other and
actually today he's truly doing it like none other. I
think he's on a Nordic track. Is that what that is?
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah? I guess some people work from standing desks and
some people use treadmill dust, but Dylan has decided he's
most productive when he's cross country skiings.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know what, there's sometimes I
question what Dylan's doing, but this actually feels on brand
for him. It seems to makes sense for him. But anyway, mego.
You and our researcher Mary Phillip Sandy came up with
the topic for this week's episode, and it's all about
what are the best ways to work? So let's talk
about that.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah, and today's episode is kind of a jumble of things.
Mary and I were brainstorming big questions we could answer
for the show, and she was like, there are so
many little things I don't know, Like I sit all
day and I don't know what's the best way to sit.
And of course, you know, at the time, I was
crossed like it on my bed, and you know, I
had a cramped neck from hunching forward. So of course
(03:24):
that's one of the things I wanted to know. But
we thought with so many people working from home now,
it might be helpful to hear about everything from some
productivity tips to how to sit to how far you
need to place your laptop screen from your Nordic track
for ultimate comfort.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Glad we're going to be giving that tip. So all right,
let's figure out where where do we want to start
here today?
Speaker 1 (03:46):
How about with ergonomics, which is such a clunky and
weird word. But what do you think when you hear
the word ergonomics.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
You know, as soon as you said it, I kind
of pictured those wavy keyboards that people started using in nineties,
or an office full of yoga ball chairs, like we
saw so many of these, how quickly these took over
actually our office for a while back in Mental Fluss.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
It was like overnight. It was like an epidemic, Like
suddenly everyone was either at a standing desk or a
yoga ball and I just kept sitting at a normal
desk with a swivel chair, just like a rube.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
But it's embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
I was thinking about those giant mouse rollerballs that you know,
I don't even know if you remember these, but they
were like red arcade ball like controllers almost, and they'd
sit in the middle of something that kind of looked
like a tiny Tesla truck. But I was also thinking
about like the first time I'd seen it in my lifetime.
I remember that my dad brought home this Swedish ergonomic
(04:41):
chair for our computer in the eighties. It had no
back and you kind of kneel into it, and every
single kid who came to my house commented on how
weird it was. But the whole idea was it was
supposed to make you sit straight and be better for
your posture. So, you know, obviously ergonomics has been a
thing in our lifetime, but I actually had no idea
how old the discipline is.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
And because I have no idea, I think you're baiting
me into asking you this question. But how old are
we talking about here?
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah? I like how you picked off on a queue there.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we really work well together.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Mary pulled this research for me from the Berkeley School
of Public Health website, and apparently ergonomics states back to
four hundred BCE, all the way back to the ancient Greeks,
so just a little before the nineteen eighties when my
dad was Swedish kneeling at his tandy or whatever. But
According to the site quote, archaeologists have found drawings and
(05:34):
paintings of chairs with contrad backs and hand tools that
resemble designs we still use today, which you know is
really remarkable. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I mean, it's funny to think about, like a stone
bench with an indentation for your butt to be considered ergonomics,
but I guess it makes sense, right, Like if you're
gonna sit comfortably, it makes sense to kind of contour
it more to your body.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, And apparently Hippocrates got into the action as well.
He wrote about how to arrange surgeons tos for optimal
workflow during surgery. So really, we've been thinking about how
best to do our work for a very long time,
but for our stories purposes. The real study of work
begins in the seventeenth century, and this is when an
Italian doctor named Bernardino Ramazzini, which you know is a
(06:16):
great name. For the first time, perhaps he begins to
notice patterns that certain types of work brings certain pains, right,
and he begins looking at why workers are suffering from
various ailments. He starts by visiting their workplaces, observing how
they work, and then he does all these interviews to
understand how their work is affecting their bodies, and this
(06:40):
is in seventeen hundred. He publishes his observations in a
book called The Diseases of the Workers.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
So if this was seventeen hundred, like, what type of
work is he studying here?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
He studies over one hundred professions and it's everything from
bakers and miller's to fishermen, to stonecutters to glassmakers. He's
also in including athletes and singers. It is surprisingly comprehensive,
and he starts to notice how various violent motions or
irregular motions, and also waits that these workers are carrying
(07:12):
daily how that's taking a toll across various classes of workers.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
So would he be considered like the father of ergonomics.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Then he's more considered the father of occupational medicine. And
his contribution is mostly in linking repetitive work to pains
and disorders, but it is interesting he also notes the
mental stresses on people who are doing things like accounting work.
These people have to get the numbers right to keep
their jobs, and so there's immense pressure on them. And
he's also looking at things like environmental conditions, so he
(07:42):
notices the breathing difficulties that Millers get and the asthma
that they get from all these powders and things in
the air. And he's quoted as saying it's far better
to prevent than to cure, So he's really ahead of
his time.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
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in the episode description. But to your question about ergonomics,
the word ergonomics gets coined in the eighteen fifties, and
this is by a Polish author and it kind of
means the science of work or laws of work, and
it isn't really until about one hundred years later that
it takes on its current meaning of fitting a job
(10:55):
to a person or a body. But before we get
into that, I want to talk briefly about the concept
of business management, which arose in the late eighteen hundreds
and it is really fascinating to me. So this is
during the Industrial Revolution, or at least impacted by it
when industrialization becomes synonymous with work and just stay with
me here because it feels like a tangent, but it's not.
(11:18):
Industrials were interested in the idea of efficiency, right, but
it wasn't like they wanted to protect workers from these
repetitive stress injuries. As businessmen, their goal was really to
extract as much value as possible from workers and kind
of treating their bodies like machines, making the most of
their bodies. And one consultant who helps figure out how
(11:39):
to do this is a guy named Frederick W. Taylor
who basically believes that workers can always be made to
produce more and less time with less motion.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Wow, always be made to So he's kind of a
nightmare boss.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yeah. His work is basically going to take any remaining
power out of the worker's hands and place it in
the hands of the bosses. At the time, they call
it quote scientific manager, right, that's the term for it,
and later they refer to this practice as tailorism. But basically,
these efficiency engineers, as they were called, we're trying to
figure out the one best way to do every task
the quickest and the way they studied This is really incredible.
(12:15):
This comes from an article in Jacobin magazine and goes, quote,
it's hard to overstate how far efficiency engineers went to
measure and survey of workers' bodies. They use stopwatches, photographed
and film workers, and tied light bulbs to workers fingers
in order to trace hand movements across long exposure photographs.
One engineer, Frank Gilbert, disaggregated each finger, shoulder, and foot,
(12:39):
plotting individual movements in units in the thousandth of a minute.
So yeah, I mean, the observation is intense, and they're
collecting immen's data, and they are analyzing every part of
every single mechanical task.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
That is wild. And so what do they do with
all this data?
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Basically, they're getting paid to make a company more profitable, right,
so they walk the employees through these studies and point
out their inefficiencies and show them how to work faster. Basically,
they fire anyone who refuses or can't keep up. But
because these are upper class men, they're also trying to
tamp down any class conflicts or resentments that could arise,
and they're trying to ease this transition into getting people
(13:19):
to work harder. So they push for pay bonuses based
on worker efficiency, and workers are incentivized to work faster,
and that way the workers are at least a little
happier and managers get more product, which they see as
a win win, I.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Mean, I guess so. But obviously these bonuses aren't so
big that anybody's getting rich here, right.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
The workers can do a little better, but their bodies
are going to take a toll for it. And there's
an interesting side note here that a bunch of the
more skilled workers start to push back. As the Jacobin
article points out, quote the diversion experiences of machinists and
shovelers was pretty illustrative. So the shovelers were less organized
and easier to replace, and they were really pushed to
(13:59):
the limit by the efficiency experts. One study from the
time actually showed that they ended up heaving two hundred
and seventy percent more tonnage than before the consultants arrived. Wow,
so they're working their tails off. It is brutal and
its backbreaking work. And meanwhile, the machinists actually has some leverage.
They kind of hold their trade secrets close to them
(14:20):
and they unionize their response and this ends up protecting
them because when managers try to control them, they act
collectively and can better dictate terms. Anyway, this all leads
back to ergonomics.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I'm glad you say that, because I was just about
to ask that.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yeah. So, as tailorism and this mechanization of the human
body was taking place, workers want to avoid being fatigued
all the time and they want to protect their health.
So in the nineteen twenties, researchers start making the case
for more humane work and not burning out your workforce.
There's this conference in Russia, but this movement takes off
(14:56):
all over and you know, this more humane work is
called ergology, which later becomes ergonomics, which you know later
translates into offices that are wall to wall with yoga
ball chairs.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Finally we got there. Was that was worth it? Though, Manga.
That was actually very interesting, and I know there's more
story to get to, but I also know we're talking
about the best ways to work, and one thing that
people definitely want to know is some definitive answer on
how to sit and not destroy their bodies, because you
hear so much about the damage that it does to
sit for so long.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah, so I'm glad you took this on because I'm
very curious about this, so tell me.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Well, one of the first places to go to if
you're thinking about anything health related is the Mayo Clinic.
So I decided to go to the website and look
at the guidelines there. Now, before you start working, you'll
want to pull out a tape measure and possibly a
protractor if you don't know what a right angle is,
or if you've got those ready, I'll continue here. One,
your knees should be about level with the hips when
you are seated with your thighs parallel to the floor,
(15:56):
so clearly sitting on a high stool or a bean
bag is not deal. Two, your hands should be at
or below elbow level with the wrist straight. Three. If
your desk has a hard edge, you should pad the
edge to protect your wrist from the contact stress. So
this includes laptops, like if you're resting your wrist on
a hard laptop, you'll want padding there. And for if
(16:18):
you're using a monitor, that should be no closer to
you than twenty inches and no further away than forty inches,
and you'll want the top of the screen to be
at or slightly below eye level. Now I have to
admit when I read many of these things, I violated
almost every single one of them.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
I also have no idea how far my computer screen
is for me.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Yeah, on that at air inches, I don't know about you.
Like on a table, I can do it, but air
inches is not my specialty.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
I also feel like I assume it must be like
twenty to forty inches from my face at all times,
but except when I don't have my glasses on and
then it's pressed up against my face. Is that distance
for your eyesight or is it for neckond posture reasons?
Why is that distance so important?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
It actually prevents both eyestrain and next strain. Though, if
you're looking to protect your eyes, the other thing you're
supposed to do is follow the twenty twenty twenty rules.
So this is where every twenty minutes, you're supposed to
take a twenty second break to look at an object
twenty feet away. This rule was developed by an optometrist
from California name Jeffrey Anshell, and this was a way
(17:26):
to help people avoid headaches and eyestrain. But you can
also close your eyes for twenty seconds and that has
a similar kind of effect.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Twenty seconds doesn't feel like long enough, Like, yeah, that's
almost teasing my brain into thinking it's taking a nap.
We've covered angles you should sit at and how far
your screen should be from your face, but what about
the whole like sitting standing, treadmill desk argument, Like, what's
the optimal way to work on that front?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
You know, the ideal seems to be alternating between sitting
and standing, because sitting for too long or being sedentary
and increases your risk for a whole host of different diseases,
I mean everything from Parkinson's two strokes, to cancers, to
diabetes to Alzheimer's. Like it's really as interesting looking at
the list and terrifying at this list of you know,
sort of tied back to this.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
It's so scary like that sitting for long periods can
increase your chances of getting six So how much do
I have to alternate?
Speaker 2 (18:21):
For this? You'll need to turn to the International Ergonomics
and Human Factors Association, which I don't think you knew
a whole lot about before this episode, and they recommend
sitting for ten minutes, then standing up for five, and
then repeating that throughout the day. So yeah, not too bad.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
First of all, please don't make any assumptions, because that
is my homepage. I could.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, you're right, I shouldn't have assumed.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
But I also don't know how you're supposed to remember
to do that like all the time. Like I feel
like the only way I could remember is if my
desk automatically lifted and lowered like every five and ten minutes.
It just feels kind of impractical. Plus you've got to
close your eyes or look twenty feet away every twenty minute,
so like none of those numbers really line up.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's interesting. I mean, if you can't
pull off the ten minutes sitting, five minutes standing routine,
there's an alternative that can help your workflow. You can
work for twenty minutes, take a two minute active break.
That's like second best option here. But when you do that,
you can also close your eyes for the first twenty
seconds or just naturally look around. But hopefully you're not
(19:24):
taking this active break and closing your eyes for the
first twenty seconds, because that seems dangerous as well.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I also like that you've ranked these, like I guess
I've got a whole list, right, I'm going to go
with option too, But is there a third place? The
truth is like if you're writing or researching, I feel
like you get in a flow and then you just
forget about the time.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yeah, I mean it actually would be good to make
time for that two minute break, just because it's helpful
for anyone with a history of diabetes in the family,
and I know you have some in the family as well.
And according to the site, getting up more frequently can
quote lower your post prandial glucose and insulin levels, which
means that avoiding sitting for long periods of time can
(20:04):
actually be an effective way of reducing the risk of
type two diabetes.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
That's amazing and I wonder you know, as people started
adapting more to this information, if it's like during the SATs,
we'll see kids just standing up in the middle of
a section and running in place to keep their diabetes away.
It kind of makes sense.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Well, there's one other suggestion if you can't keep standing
at work or take frequent breaks, and that's the stop,
drop and flop go.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
I love the branding. What's the stop, drop and flop.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
So it's exactly what it sounds like. After you send
an email or finish a task. You stop what you're doing,
let your shoulders drop, flop your hands down by your sides,
and give yourself a little bit of a stretch break.
But actually, let's talk a little bit more about sitting,
because we all know we do this a lot, or
many of us do this a lot as we're working.
So let's talk about how to best sit for optimal help.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Yeah, I'm guessing sitting cross legged on stools and chair
with my laptop on my lap probably isn't the best way.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Yeah, I actually don't see anybody advocating for that, and
I'm guilty of it as well. I mean, the bottom
line is that chairs are complicated. So I was looking
at self dot com. They interviewed a board certified physical
therapist and an orthopedic specialist about this very topic. And
there are just a lot of components here, but mostly
you want a firm, flat cushion chair, good lombar support,
(21:26):
Like a lot of really nice cushiony chairs have that
seat tilted upward in the front, and that actually puts
stress on your spine and tilts your pelvis backwards.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Which isn't that kind of like how we all drive.
I guess that's bad for long periods of time.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Yeah, it's straining the wrong parts. Like basically, you want
to be sitting upright with a straight back, so not
leaning forwards or backwards, because tilting either way puts pressure
on your shoulders and on your neck. And according to
this same piece, you also want to scoot your bottom
all the way to the back of the chair because,
as the article says, otherwise, you will be sitting on
(22:01):
your sacrament, stressing your back.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
So how do you know if you're sitting right?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Well, basically, if you're upright, your feet are on the floor,
your hips are square, and you're not tilting forward, then
you're doing it.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Right, which sounds like sticking of perfect landing and gymnastics
or something. It feels like exactly chairs some instribute its
own sport. But I feel like we've been chatting for
a bit and I am overdue for my stop, drop
and flop, which I do all the time now, So
why don't we take a two minute break and we'll
be back with more part Time Genius after these commercials.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're discussing the
very best ways to work now that you're all stretched
and relaxed. You've taken a twenty second micro nap. What
do you want to talk about?
Speaker 1 (22:56):
You know, I'm feeling so refresh and not diabetic right now,
so that's great. But as we were researching this episode,
I was looking up ergonomic keyboards and I found the
Stranger's keyboard. It is a vertical keyboard and it's supposed
to eliminate any strain on your wrist.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
And how does that work exactly? I'm looking at it now.
This is wild.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Yeah, So for everyone listening, Basically the image I'm showing
Will is it's like if you took a keyboard cut
in half and then flip the sides up like a drawbridge,
so the keys are kind of facing out on either
side of your monitor. The idea is that if your
arms are straight out in front of you, the way
you slow dance in sixth grade, or at least the
way I slow dance in sixth grade off and you're
(23:38):
typing vertically reduces that strain. It's almost like you're shaking
hands with a keyboard.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
And that's supposed to help.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
I guess because your hand's aren't resting on a hard surface,
you're you're less likely to get that wrist strain. And
also the vertical keyboard has these cushions or padding to
rest the heel of your hand, so it should be
more comfortable.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
I don't know why the halves of the keyboard have
to be so far apart. Just look at this picture.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
I guess if they were closer, you'd look like mister
Burns twiddling his fingers.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
As you type, which seems to me the goal.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
I love this futuristic kind of stuff, Like as a kid,
other than on the jetsons, I could never have imagined
people typing books on treadmills or like taking naps and
giant eggs at work. And it'll be so fun to
see how work changes in like the next twenty or
thirty years.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Oh definitely, Like they're already projections of keypads instead of
real keyboard so you can just type in the air,
and people working from self driving cars with Wi Fi
like it feels commonplace now, but this would blow the
minds of people thirty or forty years ago.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah. So I know you have some tips on how
to increase productivity, not in a tailorism way, more in
how to get things done way. But before we go
to that, why don't we talk about two very different
ergonomic chairs. So the first one I want to talk
about is for pilots, and it comes from a paper
from a journal called Science, Technology, and Human Values, but
(25:00):
it's about military cockpit design. So basically, in World War two,
ergonomics really started becoming a discipline, and it was important
to the armed forces, especially because to operate this machinery
correctly and safely and also with some regularity, you kind
of needed to build things like tanks and planes and
things to human specifications. So the term human engineering comes about,
(25:23):
and the engineers were really smart about this. To make
sure people could easily operate leg and hand controls and
see all the gauges and displays, they came up with
five critical drivers. They looked at the height of someone sitting,
they looked at functional arm reach, leg length, buttock to
knee length, and weight, and they basically designed a cockpit
(25:45):
that could both safely be operated from and that could
safely eject you if you were taller than five percent
of the male population. So the idea was that basically
everyone from the fifth percentile all the way through the
ninety fifth percentile of men in the country could operate
these machines pretty effectively, and it's kind of a landmark
in ergonomic innovation. Here you've got this beautiful new plane
(26:07):
where the dials and gages and buttons and steering wheel
are all perfectly within reach for most of the population.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Except I mean, what about the women here?
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Exactly? They designed this for men above a certain height,
but at thirty four inches sitting height, which is what
they were using, that excluded close to seventy percent of
the female population because according to the paper, only approximately
the sixty fifth through ninety fifth percentile female could operate
the machinery. So weirdly, mass producer ergonomics have this greater
(26:37):
implication on society.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Which I guess isn't that surprising, Like if you think
about the right handed scissors, that's excluding ten percent of
the population right there.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yeah. But it's even worse than that because since commercial
aviation basically copied all their design and engineering from the military,
there was what's called ergonomic bias spillover, and that goes
into commercial airlines. As the paper notes, quote, it is
not that women are not physically capable of flying these
particular aircraft. Rather, the technical artifact has functioned to delineate
(27:08):
the other.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
So what's the other ergonomic chair you wanted to talk about?
Speaker 1 (27:12):
So that one's kind of on the opposite end of
the spectrum, and it's the guy who built the first
modern ergonomic chair, a German Man named Frederick Wilhelm Dauphin.
And it's nineteen sixty eight and he's hired by a
British company as a consultant to look at how the
computer is going to impact office furniture and he's supposed
to advise them on production. But the company, I'm not
(27:33):
sure whether it's funding or what, but they can't execute
his vision. So he and his wife really believe in
this idea of human centered design. So they do what
all great startups do. They start tinkering in their garage
back in Bavaria, and they designed this very affordable chair
that has cutting edge ergonomics. It's a chair where you
can adjust the height and back and it offers incredible
(27:54):
posture support. He also creates the first synchronized mechanism for chairs,
which I had to look up what men. It's when
you tilt the back of your chair like twenty degrees,
the seapan of the chair doesn't go back the full
twenty degrees. It only moves like five or ten degrees,
so you still feel like you're reclining, but you don't
feel like you're going to tip back. And that's kind
of standard on all chairs now. But the big thing
(28:16):
for Dolphin and his wife Elkie, who was his partner
in this, was to make sure that these things were
stylish and affordable but also tailored to individual needs. So
the adjusting the height was really important to him from
the start. And that's kind of the opposite of the
cockpit chair, which was kind of one size fits all,
but really it was one size fits most men and
(28:38):
some women. Anyway, this chair just takes off and revolutionizes
office furniture across Europe and Americas, and today they are
still producing about seventeen hundred office chairs every single day.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Wow, that's pretty amazing. All right, Well, we've talked about
how to sit, how to rest your eyes, when to stand,
when to flop, But why don't we go through a
few quick tips on getting stuff done?
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Great, you know I'm always looking for productivity tips.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
I know you are, except I'm going to quiz you here.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Great, you know I'm always looking for quizzes.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
So okay, good, good, good, all right? So hot or cold?
What is better for your office temperature?
Speaker 1 (29:16):
I mean personally, like my dad's from Goa and India's
which is the beach. So you know I don't love
the cold, so I'd go with hot.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
All right. Well you are one for one. Being too
cold makes it harder to get things done. This comes
from Fast Company, But Cornell actually did a study in
an insurance office and when the temperature was low, like
sixty eight degrees, employees committed forty four percent more errors
than when the thermostat was set to seventy seven degrees.
But warm temps are actually better for office politics too.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
How's that? So?
Speaker 2 (29:49):
The article goes on to say that there was a
study in science where psychologists found that when people feel cold,
their quote more likely to perceive others as less generous
and hearing, and that the same area of the brain
that lights up when we sense temperature, aka the insular cortex,
is also active when we feel trust and empathy toward
(30:10):
another person. So basically, when we experience warmth, we experience trust.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Oh that's fascinating and such a good argument to my
wife why we have to keep the temperatures toasty? In
our house whenever I'm working. So what's next?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
All right, Well, how about having someone on a screen
doing their work but kind of watching you aka the
new trend of body doubling.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
You know, I hate when people look over my shoulder
or watch me work, even when working in like Google docs,
when someone else is in the dock. It feels like
such an adjustment for me. So I'll guess not helpful.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Well, it might not be helpful for you, but it's
actually a great hack for people with ADHD. Like this
is how an ADHD therapist named Billy Roberts explained it. Quote.
ADHD is a disorder of executive functioning, the part of
the brain that controls concentration, attention, activation of task, effort
on task, and self control, to name a few. Having
(31:06):
a person present during a less desirable task might increase
the joy surrounding that task, similar to listening to empowering
music while working, he says, and having another person there
also makes you accountable, so you're less likely to procrastinate. Apparently,
having a study buddy or this type of virtual body
doubling helps people with ADHD by increasing their dopamine levels.
(31:28):
And there are lots of websites and apps that help
you find a body double.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Body doubling sounds like such a sci fi term, you know,
but that is really interesting. Also, it makes me feel
a little guilty because both Lizzie and Henry are super
adhd and when we're both working from home, Lizzie always
suggests working from the same room and I'm just like,
you know, I'm good from over here. But it kind
of gives me more empathy as they're doing their work.
(31:53):
What else you got?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
All right? Last one afternoon coffees? What do you think?
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Ah, this is tough. I can see an argument either way,
but maybe skip them.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Yeah. The latest research, and this is coming from psychology today,
is that afternoon coffee confuses the brain, tricking your body
into thinking it has more energy than it does. As
the article points out, basically, it's pushing your body into
overdrive and taxing its resources, which is what makes you crash,
and the dependence throws off your biorrhythms. Like this is
(32:25):
whole domino effect where you get worse sleep, which curbs
your ability to de stress and causes inflammation.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
I love the idea that coffee throws off your bi rhythms,
but like sitting for ten minutes, standing for five, and
closing your eyes every twenty minutes is actually better for
your health. YEP, I do really want to be healthier.
So I'm sure this will all be in my head
for a week. But I'm guessing I will do none
of these things except raise the thermostat in my house.
But you know what will definitely make me feel better.
(32:55):
How about a little fact off.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Let's do it all right, So bosses should appreciate their
workers working from home, but you know who doesn't cats.
According to an article on Mental Floss, cats are creatures
of habit, so they like set patterns. So when people
(33:18):
started working from home during the pandemic and no one
had really run this by the cats, their routines got disrupted. Also,
the article points out that they pick up on the
emotions and vibes, so chaos from kids who had been
at school, or you being allowed on a zoom or
whatever it might have been, that was a change that
also affects them. But eventually they will come around to
(33:40):
the new routine. But the most interesting thing to me
about the article was that it advises when you go
back to the office, you don't want to deeply upset
your cat, So to help them adjust to this new routine,
you should wake up at the time you're planning to
go in and start leaving the house for longer periods
of time so they can adjust to the new routine.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
It's funny. It sounds more like you're trying to please
a roommate than a pet. So here's another quick one
that happens to evolve dogs. Do you know that workers
comp can apply to work from home injuries? In twenty eleven,
and Oregon court ruled that an interior designer was eligible
for workers comp after she tripped on her dog while
(34:21):
moving fabric samples to her garage.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
It is insane, that's wild, all right. Well, I think
a lot of us have heard of the Pomodoro technique.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yeah, that's what where you use a timer to focus
on a task for like twenty five minutes at a time,
and you take little breaks after each one of those sets. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
I mean it was already kind of a thing, and
then it got more popular during lockdown. But I didn't
realize it was created by a college kid in the
nineteen eighties. So apparently the student Francesco Cirillo, who was
having a hard time focusing, so he kind of challenged
himself to study or work for ten minutes at a time,
and he found one of those vintage tomato shaped timers
you can see and kitch aka the pomodoro, and he
(35:02):
formed this technique. The other thing I didn't realize is
that even though the technique is super simple, he actually
kept building out different parts and suggestions for the method,
and he wrote this one hundred and thirty page book
about it, which led him to this long career as
an efficiency consultant for everyone from software engineers to F
one teams.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
That's pretty amazing. So I am trying to keep all
of mine quick today. So here's another snappy one. Do
you know that slack is actually an acronym? It stands
for a searchable log of all conversation and knowledge?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Wait? Is that real? Did you just make that up?
Speaker 1 (35:38):
But no, it's true.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
I had no idea. Well, there's a lot of talk
about napping being good for you and how it benefits
everyone from pilots to astronauts to creatives, but apparently napping
was particularly popularized by the early Romans, who loved a
sexta aura, meaning a sleep in the sixth hour of
a waking day, which became known as the cs Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Oh, I love cstas so much in India. The fact
that you like nap and have this quiet break after
a lunch and then wake up and have tea and snacks.
It's like my body is built for that. I'm gonna
go slightly longer on this one, but there are a
number of studies on laughter in the office place, and
apparently people who laughed at a comedy clip and then
(36:21):
we're asked to do math problems in a lab, we're
ten percent more productive than those who didn't, which, you know,
I thought was interesting. But the other thing I thought
was fascinating is that people who crack successful jokes are
better perceived. So, according to a Harvard Business School professor
Alison Woodbrooks, presenters who make successful jokes are quote perceived
(36:43):
as more confident, more confident, and higher in status.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
I like that you said successful jokes, not just not
just any joke.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah. According to the study, it's more sweet jokes that
are confidently presented versus you know, Michael Scott type jokes
that are inappropriate.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Actually, I could see that that makes sense. All right, Well,
here's one that's kind of fun to end on, at
least for me. So Amtrak's Quiet Car has a huge
following of loyal travelers and people who swear by how
much they can get done on it. But one thing
I didn't realize is that it was actually an idea
that came about from commuters. In an interview in Fortune,
the company's former chief marketing officer explained how basically cell
(37:23):
phone chatter was ubiquitous on trains, and this group of
regular commuters begged the conductor to set aside a noise
free zone, and as soon as he did, the idea
took off, and Amtrak expanded the Quiet Car to its
entire fleet. But if you look up Amtrak's Quiet Car online,
you can find that people have written odes and poetry
to it, and they're fanatical about it. And so I
(37:45):
thought i'd end with this quote from a Yahoo Travel
story in praise of the Quiet Car. Here's how it reads.
As a proud member of the Quiet Car Nation, I
will admit that we may be overzealous in our efforts
to preserve, protect, and defend it, but that's for good reason.
In this hyper connected world, the Quiet Car is one
of the few places we have left where we are
(38:05):
out of reach of our busy home, social, and work lives.
Here we can sit with like minded people enjoying our
silent utopia and just be so. Let us celebrate the
quiet car, the last bastion of civilized travel. Let us
cherish it, let us protect it. Let us sing its praises,
just not too loudly.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Oh I like that, and I feel like it needs
like patriotic music behind it as you give that speech.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
I don't know how I can't give this to you,
So I'm going to silently hand over this week's trophy.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
I love it. I felt good about ending on that one.
All right, Well, that's it for this week's Part Time Genius.
Now remember, if you like our show, please rate it review.
It makes us so happy to know you people are listening. Also,
we love hearing from you, but more importantly, our moms
love hearing from you, and they have loved so many
of the notes that have come in recently, so right
to us at ptgeniusmomsatgmail dot com. Our moms always passed
(39:01):
these amazing messages along from Dylan, Mango, Mary and me.
Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
This show is hosted by Will Pearson and me Mongash
Heatikler and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy.
Today's episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan
Fagan with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive
produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with
(39:42):
social media support from Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and
Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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