Every so often someone asks me to name the most important thing in a home office or the first checklist item to get when furnishing a home office. Since I’m a nerd, the usual expectation is that I’ll say, “A PC with at least 8GB of RAM” or “A multifunction printer (MFP) from Dell or Xerox.” Instead, my invariable answer is, “A door.”

Unless you live alone, plopping your laptop on the kitchen or dining room table and expecting to do some work is like putting an armchair in the middle of Main Street to catch up on your reading. A high-traffic area with endless distractions from your spouse and kids is no place for productivity. That’s why a refuge with uninterrupted peace and quiet—some people can tolerate a radio playing but I always get caught up in Delilah’s(Opens in a new window) advice to the lovelorn—is home office essential #1.

The rest of setting up a home office involves both technology (which is this column’s usual topic) and my topic for this week: ergonomics, the science of providing a pain-free and productive workspace. It starts with essential #2: your desk.

Wide Open Spaces
Frankly, I don’t believe that you have to get an expensive ergonomic desk because mine is low-tech. It’s a door fastened to two chests of drawers, which my dad made for me ages ago. But your desk needs to have plenty of room, not only to accommodate all your stuff but because your screen should be at least 20 inches from your eyes. And the desk needs to be at the right height, or rather, it needs to coexist with essential #3 (your chair) to put you into a comfortable position. To define that position, I’m drawing on guidelines from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration(Opens in a new window).

For instance, did you know the usual 29-inch desk height is a compromise centered on males approximately 5 feet, 10 inches tall? A workstation measurement calculator offered by retailer The Human Solution(Opens in a new window) compensates for that sexism with recommendations that are an inch or two low in my opinion (e.g., 27.5 inches for your 6-foot-1 correspondent, with a seat height of just 18 inches).

But measurements are less important than posture. Properly sitting at a workstation means having your back straight or reclined slightly, your forearms and thighs roughly parallel to the floor, and your feet supported by the floor (or a footrest if the desk height isn’t adjustable). Your wrists and hands should be in line with your forearms; having your wrists cocked upward is terrible so don’t prop up the rear of your keyboard. Your head should be level (and facing forward, not off to one side), with your eyes looking slightly downward (at a point between the middle and top of your monitor). Shoulders should be relaxed, not hunched up, with your upper arms hanging naturally at your sides.

Get Off Your Duff
You can’t research ergonomic desks without coming across amusing suggestions such as sawing the legs off a desk and putting it on Jenga stacks of 1-inch blocks. But a simpler and increasingly popular way of tweaking desk height is to get a sit/stand desk. Such a piece of furniture adjusts—either with a crank or electrically—to the desired height for sitting or to the suitable height for standing. Alternating between the two is highly recommended as healthier than sitting all day. Also, some sit/stand desks are surprisingly affordable. The Human Solution’s Uplift(Opens in a new window) electric model starts at $599 (though I lust after the $4,899 model that looks like a traditional executive desk) and Ikea’s crank-operated Skarsta(Opens in a new window) desk costs just $269.

There obviously needs to be room under your desk for your legs, but some people reduce that room by installing a slide-out keyboard tray or drawer. A keyboard tray is an admission that your desk is too high. Get the saw.

As for your chair, its seat must be height-adjustable. When you stand next to the chair, the highest point of the seat should be just below your kneecap. Also, your chair’s lumbar support should be height-adjustable to fit the small of your back. When seated, you shouldn’t feel any pressure at the back of your knees (which should be slightly higher than, and about a fist’s distance from, the edge of the seat).

If you have a sit/stand desk, you can opt for a chair built for only part-time sitting. Some folks literally sit on exercise balls but I prefer less casual choices. The Humanscale Ballo(Opens in a new window) looks like a mushroom designed under the influence of mushrooms, with a cap at each end of the stem. The Muvman Sit-Stand Stool(Opens in a new window) adjusts from 20 to 33 inches.

Essential #4 is adequate lighting—neither too little nor too much in the form of glare. Most home office workers are fortunate in that they don’t sit under the flickering fluorescent lights that give headaches to their corporate cousins. But bright light shining into your eyes (from behind your monitor) or onto the monitor (from behind you) is equally undesirable.

The trick is to use indirect or shielded lighting, with task or desk lamps preferable to ceiling fixtures (if you do have overhead lighting, tilt your screen to a vertical or very slightly forward position to avoid reflections). If your desk is next to a sunny window, place it at right angles to the window and install blinds to block direct sunlight. OSHA(Opens in a new window) says vertical blinds work best for east/west-facing windows and horizontal blinds for north/south-facing windows.

There are other ergonomic aids with which you can equip yourself such as keyboards and mice designed to reduce repetitive stress injuries. But I’d rate them behind essentials #5 and #6 which are, of course, a PC with at least 8GB of RAM and a MFP. Nerds win out.

What are your home office setup secrets? Have you worked wonders with a small space or become a treadmill desk zealot? Let me know in the comments below or at [email protected]