This book is not intended to contain all of the information you will need to become a computer athlete. It is merely a jumping-off point. I hope it has provided you with some knowledge of computer-related injury and provided you with some tips and suggestions for mitigating your own difficulties. For example, you can adjust your sleep schedule and eating habits based on the suggestions contained in this book. On the other hand, finding the right chair or keyboard is going to require some effort and research on your part. In addition, there are many other great books and resources available to help you in your quest. Become a computer athlete, and you will reap the benefits.
We can also increase public awareness of the problem. We can start media campaigns or educational campaigns through federal agencies or the school system to tackle the problem through education. Any training or education about computer-related injury will need to focus on personal growth and understanding people’s personal needs—as I have said, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Schools could teach alternate keyboard layouts, or at least mention to students that they exist. Just as students have the option of learning Spanish or French in school, students could be given the choice to learn QWERTY or DVORAK. Computer courses could discuss the human- computer interaction and demonstrate proper technique. These programs could directly and indirectly save billions of dollars and offer a great return on investment.
Currently, too many resources are tied up in treating easily curable problems. In Africa, millions of children die every year due to respiratory infections from burning coal instead of wood chips or some other fuel. Although it doesn’t result in death, computer-related injury is a big problem, and it is one we can remedy. We can look forward to the day when fewer resources are wasted on treating easily avoidable conditions and disorders. Just like people buy compact fluorescent lightbulbs to reduce emissions and save the Earth, we can all do our part when it comes to enjoying pain-free computing.
Like many other problems we face, repetitive stress injury is a problem created by man. The computer, keyboard, and mouse are all man-made. Even computer science, which is the study of computing systems and computation, is the study of the artificial. Most importantly, the problem of computer-related injury was created by man and can be fixed by man. We can change our standards and conventions, though it’s difficult. When people learn how to use the computer, they can likewise be taught about ergonomics and proper computer usage, and make the necessary changes.
As of 2008, the state of affairs in computing is tragic. Many people have lived in pain for 10 years or more before figuring out how to attain pain-free computing. Countless others have become disabled, undergone surgery, and/or changed jobs due to injury. Too many people are affected by computer-related injury and poor health. Sadly, without a sea change, this state of affairs will not improve.
On the other hand, I am extremely optimistic that man can adapt to or change his environment. Thanks to new technology, dramatic improvements can be made by improving or changing the way we interact with a computer. These innovations have the potential to make it easier to achieve pain-free computing. Even without new technology, we can change our habits and understand and work within the limitations of our current tools.
Many of these changes require that you schedule a transition period. For example, when I learned Dvorak, I had to wait until my semester was over and I was on a break. When you are a student, there is always winter and summer break. After you graduate, however, breaks are few and far between. Therefore, learning a new layout can be quite difficult when you are already in the workforce and under deadlines. You may need to wait until you are between jobs, have a light work period, or are on a vacation to learn a new layout.
To work through this objection, let’s consider the cost of not making changes. If you don’t make changes to attain pain-free computing, you will likely experience more pain, develop a computer-related injury, and reduce your own productivity and appetite for work. At some point, you will likely purchase some medicine and/or wrist braces, receive some medical attention, and lose some productivity. Doctor’s visits, trips to the chiropractor, living in pain, and lost productivity all have a significant cost in terms of time and money. Also, in the long term, you may end up making many of these changes anyway. Therefore, you should seriously consider expending the effort on the front end and avoiding injury.
When I am on the road, I bring my mouse, keyboard, and foot pedal with me. I typically have additional equipment (such as an additional monitor and a good chair) at a remote office. In addition, I stack my monitor or laptop on books, put my keyboard on my lap, and move furniture around to make my setup more ergonomic. All of these strategies allow me to be productive when in a hotel or in a remote office. On the other hand, I do not use my computer on the train or on the plane; I typically use that time to read, think, or do design work. I find that airplanes are way too cramped to allow me to work comfortably. As well, it is difficult to stay hydrated, eat well, or use a foot pedal on a plane. Trains are better, but typically the trays are too high to be used comfortably—and I prefer not to use the keyboard on my laptop or place my laptop on top of my reproductive organs. In sum, you will miss your setup when you are on the road, but there are things you can do to get by.
If you use your laptop at work and want to be truly mobile, you may not be able to take your devices with you. When you are away from your desk, you may be doing a presentation, taking notes in a meeting, or engaging in some other type of light computer use. In these situations, you may simply not need to bring devices like an external keyboard and mouse with you. When I need to do more intensive computer activities with a team, I sit at a desk with a good setup with my team behind me. If my teammates also need to use their computers at the same time, I use software that allows us to collaborate in real-time like GoToMeeting, LogMeIn, GoToMyPC, and so on.
In addition to logistical problems, people may object to the cost of making changes. First, there can be quite a bit of upfront cost when purchasing new equipment like a mouse, chair, keyboard, foot pedal, keyboard tray, and/or second monitor. Second, finding the right equipment can be time-consuming and error-prone. Third, learning to use a new layout or device can require a substantial investment of time. For all of these changes, the cost is on the front end and the dividends are paid over time. You will need to evaluate and justify which changes make sense for you.
People also object to ergonomic vertical mouses. By design, they cannot be used by everyone. For example, if a computer is intended to be shared by the public and its mouse is a right-handed vertical mouse, installing an ergonomic mouse may discriminate against left-handed people. I don’t necessarily have a good solution to this, as most vertical mouses offer separate right- and left-handed versions. It may just not be feasible to use a vertical mouse in this type of environment.
On the other hand, if you spend most of your time at your own workstation or are ambidextrous, the above may not be a problem for you. The great thing about a vertical mouse is that it is easy to learn, moderately inexpensive, and eliminates a lot of discomfort. For almost all computer users, I would recommend looking into non-standard mouses, especially vertical mouses that use your larger muscle groups and appendages to operate.
A general objection to all non-standard devices is that if you travel, you cannot bring your setup with you. For individuals who rarely travel, this is not a significant objection. However, if you are like me, you spend a significant amount of time (10 to 20 percent) away from your setup. You may need to use your computer on the train, on an airplane, in a hotel room, or in a remote office. You can bring some of your equipment with you, such as your keyboard, mouse, and foot pedal. It is unlikely, however, that you will have a good chair or a second monitor with you. You can try to minimize the amount of work in a suboptimal environment, create a makeshift setup, or buy additional equipment for a remote office.
After you have decided how to deal with the key labels, you need to deal with the fact that most computers you will encounter will be in QWERTY rather than your layout of choice. First, you must determine whether you can be bi-layout and how your productivity will be impacted by being on a computer that is set to something other than your favorite layout. Second, you must think about how often you will be on a computer that you cannot temporarily remap. If you spend 99.9% of your time on your own computer and you do not share a computer with anyone else, then this may be a minor issue. But this may not be the case for everyone.
For example, in college, I competed in programming competitions called ACM : International Collegiate Programming Contests. In those contests, three students share one computer and solve six programming problems in a five- to six-hour time period. Because my team took turns typing on the computer, we had to run a command to change the keyboard layout, which added some time and frustration. In the end, it did not make that much difference.
The bottom line is that changing your keyboard layout leads to large productivity gains but is extremely challenging. I know of only about 20 people who use non-QWERTY layouts, and the number of Dvorak and Colemak users is less than 1% of the total number of keyboard users. At the same time, I believe that non-QWERTY keyboard layouts will gain more support over time. As well as myself, other people—like Barbara Blackburn, the world typing speed record holder; Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent; and Matt Mullenweg, lead developer of WordPress—use Dvorak.
When you are at work or in a social situation, you will inevitably be confronted with situations where your food preferences may get some attention. For example, if you chose not to drink coffee, energy drinks, or soda, or to eat unhealthy foods like pizza or donuts, people will undoubtedly be curious. For some reason, people are not surprised if you chose not to smoke, but if you don’t drink alcohol they wonder if something is wrong with you. Likewise, people may wonder whether you won’t eat pizza because you were previously overweight, you are lactose intolerant, or you have strange food preferences. I usually say that I enjoy eating pizza, donuts, and the like, but try to avoid them. In reality, I usually don’t feel good after consuming caffeine, soda, or any food that contains a lot of sugar. I tell people that I don’t feel good after the sugar high—they usually leave me alone after that.
Some of the biggest challenges and objections I have faced related to my changing keyboard layouts. Learning a new keyboard layout is a significant time investment, and there are many reasonable objections to such an effort. First, although you can change the keyboard layout easily in Windows, Mac, or Linux, most keyboards you can purchase are made with the QWERTY layout printed on them. You can overcome this by purchasing a keyboard in your layout of choice, buying a kit of stickers to relabel the keys, popping off and moving the keys around, or simply learning to touch type the new layout on a keyboard in the QWERTY layout.
In my case, I printed a copy of Dvorak and placed it near my desk for reference while I learned to touch type using Ten Thumbs Typing. I am also bi-layout and can type in either layout. I am, however, much faster in Dvorak and greatly prefer it to QWERTY.
As you contemplate many of the changes described in this book, you will probably be able to come up with reasons why a particular technique will not work for you. The point, however, is not to see how many objections or excuses you can dredge up. The point is, instead, to find the necessary changes you need to make to become a computer athlete.
There are different strokes for different folks—while some of these changes, like using a foot pedal, may be too extreme for you, they will work for other people. In fact, the worst thing anyone can do is to make fun of people who use foot pedals, put their keyboard on their lap, or use some other unconventional technique to help themselves avoid computer-related pain. For example, when I worked at Microsoft as an intern, my mentor told a senior manager of Microsoft Office that I used Dvorak and a foot pedal. The manager was very surprised and commented, “Whoa, freak.” Fortunately, I was used to people’s initially negative reactions to my foot pedal or my explanation of the computer athlete idea. On the other hand, many other people have responded very positively to my techniques, including physicians, chiropractors, entrepreneurs, computer programmers, and especially the CEO and CTO of the company I worked for while writing this book.
So that you can meet people’s skepticism with confidence, I will walk through several common objections raised about the techniques described in this book. Most objections are related to equipment and usage; stress management, strength and conditioning, nutrition, and self-awareness and self-care are not easily observable when you are at work.
Even in a situation where you cannot necessarily eliminate the source of your stress, you can control the way you respond to it. For example, there are computer programs available that allow you to track how you use your computer, from how long you hold the mouse to how quickly you type. When you realize that you are pressing on the keys harder or more frequently than you normally do, you can change your behavior. In my experience, people tend to take fewer breaks, use non-ergonomic hand movements like pronation to increase their output, and context switch too frequently between programs when under stress. When I am under stress, I remind myself of other stressful situations that I have successfully navigated through and tell myself that my current situation is not much different. Fortunately, my current line of work is not a matter of life or death, and I can reassure myself that if I work a bit more slowly, the consequences will not be dire. In general, understanding how stress can tempt you to deviate from the principles of computer athleticism but not failing prey to that temptation can help you avoid injury.
Stress can tempt you to deviate from the principles of computer athleticism. The best way to avoid injury, however, is to stay true to those principles.
Finally, you can work on your interpersonal relationships to reduce and prevent stressful situations from occurring. For example, if fighting with your spouse, significant other, friend, or family causes you large amounts of stress, you should proactively try to avoid or resolve conflicts that tend to escalate from repeated arguments or patterns of behavior. Another personal example: when my mother received calls from work during the weekend, my father would argue that my mother worked too much and was not compensated fairly. My mother would push back and state that she had an important obligation to keep the store running and that my dad didn’t understand. The argument would escalate and my father would tell my mother that she was married to her job. This same argument was repeated many times over the years. The point is that while arguing raised both my mother and father’s blood pressure, they never took steps to resolve or mitigate the conflict. My mother could have found a non-intrusive way to handle the needs of the store over the weekends, while my father could have agreed to cut my mom some slack. For many, including myself, stress from interpersonal relationships and life dwarfs stress from work, and a lot of stress can be avoided by working on those interpersonal relationships.
Stress from life and personal relationships can exceed work stress and can impact your performance.
The bottom line is that you can identify the things in your life that cause you stress and take steps to proactively mitigate or avoid them.