I just found the perfect solution to standing desk fatigue at SXSW
Since converting, I've fallen in love with my standing situation. I really do feel healthier and more productive now. But there is one major problem: When I do want to sit, there's no comfortable way to do it.
Because it would be too tiring to stand all day, I bought a high, armed chair off Amazon that cost me about $70. Business Insider doesn't have electronic, adjustable desks, though, and it turns out that the height of my chair and the height of my desk align in such a way that when I try to fully sit on it, there's no where for my knees to fit.
As a result, I end up just leaning against my expensive stool, not really sitting on it. It's not very comfortable, not to mention the fact that whenever I'm ready to stand again, my big, bulky chair hogs the aisle behind my desk. Some of my coworkers solve the problem by just sitting in a normal chair when they want to sit and either craning their necks up at their computer, or, if they use a laptop as one of their monitors, moving everything down to a lower height. I've had several coworkers ditch their standing desks in the last several weeks because of the inconvenient situation. I myself have suffered enough standing desk fatigue that I've considered going back to the sitting life.
During a jaunt through the SXSW exhibition center early today, though, I stumbled upon the perfect solution. It's called the "Mogo portable seat" and it's made by a company called Focal Upright.
The Mogo is basically just a seat atop a ball, made for standing desk people who want to take a lean every now and again. Perching on the stool lets you take about 30% of your weight off of your feet. Basically, it allows me to do what I was trying to do with my chair, but that's what it's actually made for. When you're ready to stand upright again, you can either fold it back up (that's right, it folds), or lean it unobtrusively off to the side.
From the moment I started leaning, I knew I wanted one.
"You're supposed to change postures about six to eight times an hour," a spokesperson at the Focal booth told me. There was also a bad pun thrown in about using the stool to "rock your day job," since the ball base allows you to rock back and forth or side-to-side. Lame jokes aside, after trying the $99 Mogo out, I'm convinced that once I get back to New York I need to ditch my old chair. Looks like I'm not going back to sitting after all.
Learn more about the Mogo in this video: