You don’t need a new chair — you need the one you have dialed in. Run this mid-week when your neck or wrists start talking. Change one thing at a time and sit for a few minutes before the next tweak so you can feel what actually helped.
Chair (start here — everything else references your seated height):
- Set height so your elbows rest at roughly 90° with shoulders relaxed and feet flat. If your feet dangle, add a footrest rather than dropping the seat.
- Adjust lumbar support to fill the curve of your lower back; you should feel it without leaning into it.
- Slide the seat so there’s a two-finger gap behind your knees, and set armrests to just support your forearms without shrugging.
Monitor:
- Top of the screen at or just below eye level, so your gaze drops slightly. Raise it on a stand or arm before you crane your neck.
- Arm’s length away (roughly 20–30 inches). Push it back and bump the font size rather than leaning in.
- Tilt the top slightly away to kill overhead glare, and center it — a monitor off to one side twists your neck all day.
Keyboard & mouse:
- Keep the keyboard flat or slightly negative-tilted; wrists straight, not bent up. Fold the flip-out feet down if they cock your wrists back.
- Elbows close to your body and mouse at the same height as the keyboard — no reaching up or out.
- If your wrists rest on the desk edge, add a soft palm rest to take off the pressure point.
Lighting:
- Put your key light in front or to the side, never behind the monitor, so your eyes aren’t fighting a bright backdrop.
- Aim for 4000–5000K and enough ambient light that the screen isn’t the only bright thing in the room — that contrast is what tires your eyes.
- Kill glare and reflections on the screen; reposition the lamp or angle the monitor rather than cranking brightness.
Weekly habit: run these four in order, adjust one thing, and note what helped in your desk inventory. Small, repeatable tweaks beat one big reshuffle you’ll never redo.
