A month with my stand-up desk

When the idea of stand-up desks became more mainstream a couple of years ago; I laughed at them. I thought they were a gimmick; why on earth would you want to stand-up all day? Surely it wouldn't do your legs and feet any benefit in the long term? Well, I can't tell you whether that's true for a stand-up desk or not; what I can tell you is that it's not true for sit-stand desks. I've had mine for around a month now; and can't imagine working without it.

why on earth would you want to stand-up all day?

You can now get both electric and manual sit-stand desks; I chose to get an electric one from IKEA. When it comes to sit-stand desks in the UK, you're pretty limited in what's available compared to the USA for example; let alone what's available for a decent price. In the past year IKEA brought out their range of sit-stand desks at affordable prices.

What I had before.

Before I got the sit-stand desk I had a decent sized desk and an IKEA MARKUS chair - so not a bad setup at all. I've always been very particular about my desks and chairs but working from home all day for the past year was starting to take it's toll on my back. When you work in an office, you tend to move around much much more than you do when you're at home. I know this is a fact for me at least; my Fitbit used to register 10,000 steps a day easily when I worked in an office - now it's usually more like 6,000. I was sitting for more of the day and I was doing damage to my back even with a great chair; something needed to change.

I've been using the sit-stand desk for around a month now and couldn't imagine working every day without it; I don't have back pain any more. I'm naturally moving around more and with movement comes different frames of mind, which naturally brings new ideas and new solutions to my work.

my Fitbit used to register 10,000 steps a day easily when I worked in an office - now it's usually more like 6,000

How much?

I paid £445 for the BEKANT sit-stand desk from IKEA which is just a bargain in my eyes.

And anyone that already works at a stand-up desk of some description will tell you how much you need an anti-fatigue mat; and I couldn't agree more. Without the anti-fatigue mat, all the benefits of standing and moving around get thrown out the window. Again, finding a decent mat for a decent price is pretty difficult in the UK - I ended up buying the "VARIDESK" anti-fatigue mat from Posturite for only £60.

For only £505 including VAT; you get a solution that will categorically save your back in later life - I don't think you can put a price on that and any new employees at Nimble Ape Ltd will get the option of a sit-stand desk and mat when they join us.

just a bargain in my eyes

Cons

The only con in the whole package is that the ikea sit-stand desk only has up and down buttons; it has no memory like the more expensive ones. This means that whenever you go and stand up or sit down; you have to manually adjust the position of the desk. Over time you get used to how long to press the buttons for etc; but if IKEA did a memory unit I'd buy it!

Extras

The key thing with sit-stand desks is that the desk moves up and down. This is obvious. What isn't obvious straight away is that typically your cable management on your previous desk will probably have been almost non-existent because your old desk hid the cables. So now you need to think about cable management and not even just keeping your cables tidy; you also need to think about the fact your desk can now grow in height by let's say a meter.

cable management on your previous desk will probably have been almost non-existent

Luckily, the IKEA BEKANT desks come with a form of cable management which has enough space in it to hold a power extension cable. By putting the extension cable in the cable management it meant that less cables needed to travel to the floor.

Grouping the cables going to the floor now needed to look tidy too so I bought some cable meshing off eBay as well as lengths of velcro from amazon to group cables within the cable management under the desk.

I also had a 7 port USB3 Hub which now needed to remain attached to the desk. I decided I would mount it upside down under the desk. At first I tried sticky back velcro but this failed miserably; it kept coming away from the desk - then I came across these picture hanging strips from command. If these strips were strong enough to hold a picture to a wall; they were surely strong enough to hold a USB hub upside down. I was right - they did the job wonderfully.

As you can see from the pictures, I'm not fully there with my cable management yet!