Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, a production of Kaleidoscope,
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will?
Speaker 2: What's that? Mango?
Speaker 1: So I had a big writing assignment last week, and
Speaker 1: I was not nearly as productive as I should have been.
Speaker 1: I procrastinated, I got distracted, and I kind of pushed
Speaker 1: off the assignment for way too long.
Speaker 2: I like that you're leaving out one key fact that
Speaker 2: you were actually supposed to be on vacation last week.
Speaker 1: I know, but I'd set aside a few hours so
Speaker 1: that I could keep some projects on track. And then
Speaker 1: I missed my deadline. So I started doing what I
Speaker 1: always do when i'm behind. I looked up tricks for
Speaker 1: how to work better, and I stumbled into this old
Speaker 1: chestnut about how Victor Hugo used to make sure he
Speaker 1: didn't procrastinate. Basically, whenever he got writer's block, he'd have
Speaker 1: his servant take all his clothes away and leave him
Speaker 1: with only a pen and paper, so we had nothing
Speaker 1: to do but write in the nude, which I guess
Speaker 1: is how he hit all his deadlines.
Speaker 2: And also sounds a little bit extreme if you ask me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But one thing I've been wondering about is whether
Speaker 1: it was the fact that he was stuck in his
Speaker 1: house without clothes that made him write, or whether it
Speaker 1: was actually being nude that put him in the mood
Speaker 1: to do the writing and inspired him. Like Hemingway wrote
Speaker 1: Nude at a standing desk. Ben Franklin famously took airbats
Speaker 1: where you'd wake up early, you know, sit by a
Speaker 1: drafty window and feel invigorated to journal before going back
Speaker 1: to bed for sort of a wonderful sleep. Churchill Agatha
Speaker 1: Christie both worked from the back. So there are a
Speaker 1: lot of these folks.
Speaker 2: Wow. But for all our listeners, just to know you
Speaker 2: you are not only working right now, but you are
Speaker 2: fully closed as we record. So I'm thankful for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you know, I'm too Victorian to work in
Speaker 1: the nude, even in my own house. But hearing those
Speaker 1: facts made me wonder what are the best ways to work?
Speaker 1: So that's what this episode is all about. Let's dive in.
Speaker 2: Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 2: Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
Speaker 2: friend Mangesh hot Ticketter and sitting behind that big booth
Speaker 2: manning the mixing board, doing it like none other and
Speaker 2: actually today he's truly doing it like none other. I
Speaker 2: think he's on a Nordic track. Is that what that is?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I guess some people work from standing desks and
Speaker 1: some people use treadmill dust, but Dylan has decided he's
Speaker 1: most productive when he's cross country skiings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know what, there's sometimes I
Speaker 2: question what Dylan's doing, but this actually feels on brand
Speaker 2: for him. It seems to makes sense for him. But anyway, mego.
Speaker 2: You and our researcher Mary Phillip Sandy came up with
Speaker 2: the topic for this week's episode, and it's all about
Speaker 2: what are the best ways to work? So let's talk
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and today's episode is kind of a jumble of things.
Speaker 1: Mary and I were brainstorming big questions we could answer
Speaker 1: for the show, and she was like, there are so
Speaker 1: many little things I don't know, Like I sit all
Speaker 1: day and I don't know what's the best way to sit.
Speaker 1: And of course, you know, at the time, I was
Speaker 1: crossed like it on my bed, and you know, I
Speaker 1: had a cramped neck from hunching forward. So of course
Speaker 1: that's one of the things I wanted to know. But
Speaker 1: we thought with so many people working from home now,
Speaker 1: it might be helpful to hear about everything from some
Speaker 1: productivity tips to how to sit to how far you
Speaker 1: need to place your laptop screen from your Nordic track
Speaker 1: for ultimate comfort.
Speaker 2: Glad we're going to be giving that tip. So all right,
Speaker 2: let's figure out where where do we want to start
Speaker 2: here today?
Speaker 1: How about with ergonomics, which is such a clunky and
Speaker 1: weird word. But what do you think when you hear
Speaker 1: the word ergonomics.
Speaker 2: You know, as soon as you said it, I kind
Speaker 2: of pictured those wavy keyboards that people started using in nineties,
Speaker 2: or an office full of yoga ball chairs, like we
Speaker 2: saw so many of these, how quickly these took over
Speaker 2: actually our office for a while back in Mental Fluss.
Speaker 1: It was like overnight. It was like an epidemic, Like
Speaker 1: suddenly everyone was either at a standing desk or a
Speaker 1: yoga ball and I just kept sitting at a normal
Speaker 1: desk with a swivel chair, just like a rube.
Speaker 2: But it's embarrassing.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about those giant mouse rollerballs that you know,
Speaker 1: I don't even know if you remember these, but they
Speaker 1: were like red arcade ball like controllers almost, and they'd
Speaker 1: sit in the middle of something that kind of looked
Speaker 1: like a tiny Tesla truck. But I was also thinking
Speaker 1: about like the first time I'd seen it in my lifetime.
Speaker 1: I remember that my dad brought home this Swedish ergonomic
Speaker 1: chair for our computer in the eighties. It had no
Speaker 1: back and you kind of kneel into it, and every
Speaker 1: single kid who came to my house commented on how
Speaker 1: weird it was. But the whole idea was it was
Speaker 1: supposed to make you sit straight and be better for
Speaker 1: your posture. So, you know, obviously ergonomics has been a
Speaker 1: thing in our lifetime, but I actually had no idea
Speaker 1: how old the discipline is.
Speaker 2: And because I have no idea, I think you're baiting
Speaker 2: me into asking you this question. But how old are
Speaker 2: we talking about here?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I like how you picked off on a queue there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we really work well together.
Speaker 1: Mary pulled this research for me from the Berkeley School
Speaker 1: of Public Health website, and apparently ergonomics states back to
Speaker 1: four hundred BCE, all the way back to the ancient Greeks,
Speaker 1: so just a little before the nineteen eighties when my
Speaker 1: dad was Swedish kneeling at his tandy or whatever. But
Speaker 1: According to the site quote, archaeologists have found drawings and
Speaker 1: paintings of chairs with contrad backs and hand tools that
Speaker 1: resemble designs we still use today, which you know is
Speaker 1: really remarkable. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's funny to think about, like a stone
Speaker 2: bench with an indentation for your butt to be considered ergonomics,
Speaker 2: but I guess it makes sense, right, Like if you're
Speaker 2: gonna sit comfortably, it makes sense to kind of contour
Speaker 2: it more to your body.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And apparently Hippocrates got into the action as well.
Speaker 1: He wrote about how to arrange surgeons tos for optimal
Speaker 1: workflow during surgery. So really, we've been thinking about how
Speaker 1: best to do our work for a very long time,
Speaker 1: but for our stories purposes. The real study of work
Speaker 1: begins in the seventeenth century, and this is when an
Speaker 1: Italian doctor named Bernardino Ramazzini, which you know is a
Speaker 1: great name. For the first time, perhaps he begins to
Speaker 1: notice patterns that certain types of work brings certain pains, right,
Speaker 1: and he begins looking at why workers are suffering from
Speaker 1: various ailments. He starts by visiting their workplaces, observing how
Speaker 1: they work, and then he does all these interviews to
Speaker 1: understand how their work is affecting their bodies, and this
Speaker 1: is in seventeen hundred. He publishes his observations in a
Speaker 1: book called The Diseases of the Workers.
Speaker 2: So if this was seventeen hundred, like, what type of
Speaker 2: work is he studying here?
Speaker 1: He studies over one hundred professions and it's everything from
Speaker 1: bakers and miller's to fishermen, to stonecutters to glassmakers. He's
Speaker 1: also in including athletes and singers. It is surprisingly comprehensive,
Speaker 1: and he starts to notice how various violent motions or
Speaker 1: irregular motions, and also waits that these workers are carrying
Speaker 1: daily how that's taking a toll across various classes of workers.
Speaker 2: So would he be considered like the father of ergonomics.
Speaker 1: Then he's more considered the father of occupational medicine. And
Speaker 1: his contribution is mostly in linking repetitive work to pains
Speaker 1: and disorders, but it is interesting he also notes the
Speaker 1: mental stresses on people who are doing things like accounting work.
Speaker 1: These people have to get the numbers right to keep
Speaker 1: their jobs, and so there's immense pressure on them. And
Speaker 1: he's also looking at things like environmental conditions, so he
Speaker 1: notices the breathing difficulties that Millers get and the asthma
Speaker 1: that they get from all these powders and things in
Speaker 1: the air. And he's quoted as saying it's far better
Speaker 1: to prevent than to cure, So he's really ahead of
Speaker 1: his time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 1: So today's episode of Part Time Genius is brought to
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Speaker 1: in the episode description. But to your question about ergonomics,
Speaker 1: the word ergonomics gets coined in the eighteen fifties, and
Speaker 1: this is by a Polish author and it kind of
Speaker 1: means the science of work or laws of work, and
Speaker 1: it isn't really until about one hundred years later that
Speaker 1: it takes on its current meaning of fitting a job
Speaker 1: to a person or a body. But before we get
Speaker 1: into that, I want to talk briefly about the concept
Speaker 1: of business management, which arose in the late eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: and it is really fascinating to me. So this is
Speaker 1: during the Industrial Revolution, or at least impacted by it
Speaker 1: when industrialization becomes synonymous with work and just stay with
Speaker 1: me here because it feels like a tangent, but it's not.
Speaker 1: Industrials were interested in the idea of efficiency, right, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't like they wanted to protect workers from these
Speaker 1: repetitive stress injuries. As businessmen, their goal was really to
Speaker 1: extract as much value as possible from workers and kind
Speaker 1: of treating their bodies like machines, making the most of
Speaker 1: their bodies. And one consultant who helps figure out how
Speaker 1: to do this is a guy named Frederick W. Taylor
Speaker 1: who basically believes that workers can always be made to
Speaker 1: produce more and less time with less motion.
Speaker 2: Wow, always be made to So he's kind of a
Speaker 2: nightmare boss.
Speaker 1: Yeah. His work is basically going to take any remaining
Speaker 1: power out of the worker's hands and place it in
Speaker 1: the hands of the bosses. At the time, they call
Speaker 1: it quote scientific manager, right, that's the term for it,
Speaker 1: and later they refer to this practice as tailorism. But basically,
Speaker 1: these efficiency engineers, as they were called, we're trying to
Speaker 1: figure out the one best way to do every task
Speaker 1: the quickest and the way they studied This is really incredible.
Speaker 1: This comes from an article in Jacobin magazine and goes, quote,
Speaker 1: it's hard to overstate how far efficiency engineers went to
Speaker 1: measure and survey of workers' bodies. They use stopwatches, photographed
Speaker 1: and film workers, and tied light bulbs to workers fingers
Speaker 1: in order to trace hand movements across long exposure photographs.
Speaker 1: One engineer, Frank Gilbert, disaggregated each finger, shoulder, and foot,
Speaker 1: plotting individual movements in units in the thousandth of a minute.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, the observation is intense, and they're
Speaker 1: collecting immen's data, and they are analyzing every part of
Speaker 1: every single mechanical task.
Speaker 2: That is wild. And so what do they do with
Speaker 2: all this data?
Speaker 1: Basically, they're getting paid to make a company more profitable, right,
Speaker 1: so they walk the employees through these studies and point
Speaker 1: out their inefficiencies and show them how to work faster. Basically,
Speaker 1: they fire anyone who refuses or can't keep up. But
Speaker 1: because these are upper class men, they're also trying to
Speaker 1: tamp down any class conflicts or resentments that could arise,
Speaker 1: and they're trying to ease this transition into getting people
Speaker 1: to work harder. So they push for pay bonuses based
Speaker 1: on worker efficiency, and workers are incentivized to work faster,
Speaker 1: and that way the workers are at least a little
Speaker 1: happier and managers get more product, which they see as
Speaker 1: a win win, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, I guess so. But obviously these bonuses aren't so
Speaker 2: big that anybody's getting rich here, right.
Speaker 1: The workers can do a little better, but their bodies
Speaker 1: are going to take a toll for it. And there's
Speaker 1: an interesting side note here that a bunch of the
Speaker 1: more skilled workers start to push back. As the Jacobin
Speaker 1: article points out, quote the diversion experiences of machinists and
Speaker 1: shovelers was pretty illustrative. So the shovelers were less organized
Speaker 1: and easier to replace, and they were really pushed to
Speaker 1: the limit by the efficiency experts. One study from the
Speaker 1: time actually showed that they ended up heaving two hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy percent more tonnage than before the consultants arrived. Wow,
Speaker 1: so they're working their tails off. It is brutal and
Speaker 1: its backbreaking work. And meanwhile, the machinists actually has some leverage.
Speaker 1: They kind of hold their trade secrets close to them
Speaker 1: and they unionize their response and this ends up protecting
Speaker 1: them because when managers try to control them, they act
Speaker 1: collectively and can better dictate terms. Anyway, this all leads
Speaker 1: back to ergonomics.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you say that, because I was just about
Speaker 2: to ask that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, as tailorism and this mechanization of the human
Speaker 1: body was taking place, workers want to avoid being fatigued
Speaker 1: all the time and they want to protect their health.
Speaker 1: So in the nineteen twenties, researchers start making the case
Speaker 1: for more humane work and not burning out your workforce.
Speaker 1: There's this conference in Russia, but this movement takes off
Speaker 1: all over and you know, this more humane work is
Speaker 1: called ergology, which later becomes ergonomics, which you know later
Speaker 1: translates into offices that are wall to wall with yoga
Speaker 1: ball chairs.
Speaker 2: Finally we got there. Was that was worth it? Though, Manga.
Speaker 2: That was actually very interesting, and I know there's more
Speaker 2: story to get to, but I also know we're talking
Speaker 2: about the best ways to work, and one thing that
Speaker 2: people definitely want to know is some definitive answer on
Speaker 2: how to sit and not destroy their bodies, because you
Speaker 2: hear so much about the damage that it does to
Speaker 2: sit for so long.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm glad you took this on because I'm
Speaker 1: very curious about this, so tell me.
Speaker 2: Well, one of the first places to go to if
Speaker 2: you're thinking about anything health related is the Mayo Clinic.
Speaker 2: So I decided to go to the website and look
Speaker 2: at the guidelines there. Now, before you start working, you'll
Speaker 2: want to pull out a tape measure and possibly a
Speaker 2: protractor if you don't know what a right angle is,
Speaker 2: or if you've got those ready, I'll continue here. One,
Speaker 2: your knees should be about level with the hips when
Speaker 2: you are seated with your thighs parallel to the floor,
Speaker 2: so clearly sitting on a high stool or a bean
Speaker 2: bag is not deal. Two, your hands should be at
Speaker 2: or below elbow level with the wrist straight. Three. If
Speaker 2: your desk has a hard edge, you should pad the
Speaker 2: edge to protect your wrist from the contact stress. So
Speaker 2: this includes laptops, like if you're resting your wrist on
Speaker 2: a hard laptop, you'll want padding there. And for if
Speaker 2: you're using a monitor, that should be no closer to
Speaker 2: you than twenty inches and no further away than forty inches,
Speaker 2: and you'll want the top of the screen to be
Speaker 2: at or slightly below eye level. Now I have to
Speaker 2: admit when I read many of these things, I violated
Speaker 2: almost every single one of them.
Speaker 1: I also have no idea how far my computer screen
Speaker 1: is for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, on that at air inches, I don't know about you.
Speaker 2: Like on a table, I can do it, but air
Speaker 2: inches is not my specialty.
Speaker 1: I also feel like I assume it must be like
Speaker 1: twenty to forty inches from my face at all times,
Speaker 1: but except when I don't have my glasses on and
Speaker 1: then it's pressed up against my face. Is that distance
Speaker 1: for your eyesight or is it for neckond posture reasons?
Speaker 1: Why is that distance so important?
Speaker 2: It actually prevents both eyestrain and next strain. Though, if
Speaker 2: you're looking to protect your eyes, the other thing you're
Speaker 2: supposed to do is follow the twenty twenty twenty rules.
Speaker 2: So this is where every twenty minutes, you're supposed to
Speaker 2: take a twenty second break to look at an object
Speaker 2: twenty feet away. This rule was developed by an optometrist
Speaker 2: from California name Jeffrey Anshell, and this was a way
Speaker 2: to help people avoid headaches and eyestrain. But you can
Speaker 2: also close your eyes for twenty seconds and that has
Speaker 2: a similar kind of effect.
Speaker 1: Twenty seconds doesn't feel like long enough, Like, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: almost teasing my brain into thinking it's taking a nap.
Speaker 1: We've covered angles you should sit at and how far
Speaker 1: your screen should be from your face, but what about
Speaker 1: the whole like sitting standing, treadmill desk argument, Like, what's
Speaker 1: the optimal way to work on that front?
Speaker 2: You know, the ideal seems to be alternating between sitting
Speaker 2: and standing, because sitting for too long or being sedentary
Speaker 2: and increases your risk for a whole host of different diseases,
Speaker 2: I mean everything from Parkinson's two strokes, to cancers, to
Speaker 2: diabetes to Alzheimer's. Like it's really as interesting looking at
Speaker 2: the list and terrifying at this list of you know,
Speaker 2: sort of tied back to this.
Speaker 1: It's so scary like that sitting for long periods can
Speaker 1: increase your chances of getting six So how much do
Speaker 1: I have to alternate?
Speaker 2: For this? You'll need to turn to the International Ergonomics
Speaker 2: and Human Factors Association, which I don't think you knew
Speaker 2: a whole lot about before this episode, and they recommend
Speaker 2: sitting for ten minutes, then standing up for five, and
Speaker 2: then repeating that throughout the day. So yeah, not too bad.
Speaker 1: First of all, please don't make any assumptions, because that
Speaker 1: is my homepage. I could.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, I shouldn't have assumed.
Speaker 1: But I also don't know how you're supposed to remember
Speaker 1: to do that like all the time. Like I feel
Speaker 1: like the only way I could remember is if my
Speaker 1: desk automatically lifted and lowered like every five and ten minutes.
Speaker 1: It just feels kind of impractical. Plus you've got to
Speaker 1: close your eyes or look twenty feet away every twenty minute,
Speaker 1: so like none of those numbers really line up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's it's interesting. I mean, if you can't
Speaker 2: pull off the ten minutes sitting, five minutes standing routine,
Speaker 2: there's an alternative that can help your workflow. You can
Speaker 2: work for twenty minutes, take a two minute active break.
Speaker 2: That's like second best option here. But when you do that,
Speaker 2: you can also close your eyes for the first twenty
Speaker 2: seconds or just naturally look around. But hopefully you're not
Speaker 2: taking this active break and closing your eyes for the
Speaker 2: first twenty seconds, because that seems dangerous as well.
Speaker 1: I also like that you've ranked these, like I guess
Speaker 1: I've got a whole list, right, I'm going to go
Speaker 1: with option too, But is there a third place? The
Speaker 1: truth is like if you're writing or researching, I feel
Speaker 1: like you get in a flow and then you just
Speaker 1: forget about the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it actually would be good to make
Speaker 2: time for that two minute break, just because it's helpful
Speaker 2: for anyone with a history of diabetes in the family,
Speaker 2: and I know you have some in the family as well.
Speaker 2: And according to the site, getting up more frequently can
Speaker 2: quote lower your post prandial glucose and insulin levels, which
Speaker 2: means that avoiding sitting for long periods of time can
Speaker 2: actually be an effective way of reducing the risk of
Speaker 2: type two diabetes.
Speaker 1: That's amazing and I wonder you know, as people started
Speaker 1: adapting more to this information, if it's like during the SATs,
Speaker 1: we'll see kids just standing up in the middle of
Speaker 1: a section and running in place to keep their diabetes away.
Speaker 1: It kind of makes sense.
Speaker 2: Well, there's one other suggestion if you can't keep standing
Speaker 2: at work or take frequent breaks, and that's the stop,
Speaker 2: drop and flop go.
Speaker 1: I love the branding. What's the stop, drop and flop.
Speaker 2: So it's exactly what it sounds like. After you send
Speaker 2: an email or finish a task. You stop what you're doing,
Speaker 2: let your shoulders drop, flop your hands down by your sides,
Speaker 2: and give yourself a little bit of a stretch break.
Speaker 2: But actually, let's talk a little bit more about sitting,
Speaker 2: because we all know we do this a lot, or
Speaker 2: many of us do this a lot as we're working.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about how to best sit for optimal help.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm guessing sitting cross legged on stools and chair
Speaker 1: with my laptop on my lap probably isn't the best way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually don't see anybody advocating for that, and
Speaker 2: I'm guilty of it as well. I mean, the bottom
Speaker 2: line is that chairs are complicated. So I was looking
Speaker 2: at self dot com. They interviewed a board certified physical
Speaker 2: therapist and an orthopedic specialist about this very topic. And
Speaker 2: there are just a lot of components here, but mostly
Speaker 2: you want a firm, flat cushion chair, good lombar support,
Speaker 2: Like a lot of really nice cushiony chairs have that
Speaker 2: seat tilted upward in the front, and that actually puts
Speaker 2: stress on your spine and tilts your pelvis backwards.
Speaker 1: Which isn't that kind of like how we all drive.
Speaker 1: I guess that's bad for long periods of time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's straining the wrong parts. Like basically, you want
Speaker 2: to be sitting upright with a straight back, so not
Speaker 2: leaning forwards or backwards, because tilting either way puts pressure
Speaker 2: on your shoulders and on your neck. And according to
Speaker 2: this same piece, you also want to scoot your bottom
Speaker 2: all the way to the back of the chair because,
Speaker 2: as the article says, otherwise, you will be sitting on
Speaker 2: your sacrament, stressing your back.
Speaker 1: So how do you know if you're sitting right?
Speaker 2: Well, basically, if you're upright, your feet are on the floor,
Speaker 2: your hips are square, and you're not tilting forward, then
Speaker 2: you're doing it.
Speaker 1: Right, which sounds like sticking of perfect landing and gymnastics
Speaker 1: or something. It feels like exactly chairs some instribute its
Speaker 1: own sport. But I feel like we've been chatting for
Speaker 1: a bit and I am overdue for my stop, drop
Speaker 1: and flop, which I do all the time now, So
Speaker 1: why don't we take a two minute break and we'll
Speaker 1: be back with more part Time Genius after these commercials.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're discussing the
Speaker 2: very best ways to work now that you're all stretched
Speaker 2: and relaxed. You've taken a twenty second micro nap. What
Speaker 2: do you want to talk about?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm feeling so refresh and not diabetic right now,
Speaker 1: so that's great. But as we were researching this episode,
Speaker 1: I was looking up ergonomic keyboards and I found the
Speaker 1: Stranger's keyboard. It is a vertical keyboard and it's supposed
Speaker 1: to eliminate any strain on your wrist.
Speaker 2: And how does that work exactly? I'm looking at it now.
Speaker 2: This is wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So for everyone listening, Basically the image I'm showing
Speaker 1: Will is it's like if you took a keyboard cut
Speaker 1: in half and then flip the sides up like a drawbridge,
Speaker 1: so the keys are kind of facing out on either
Speaker 1: side of your monitor. The idea is that if your
Speaker 1: arms are straight out in front of you, the way
Speaker 1: you slow dance in sixth grade, or at least the
Speaker 1: way I slow dance in sixth grade off and you're
Speaker 1: typing vertically reduces that strain. It's almost like you're shaking
Speaker 1: hands with a keyboard.
Speaker 2: And that's supposed to help.
Speaker 1: I guess because your hand's aren't resting on a hard surface,
Speaker 1: you're you're less likely to get that wrist strain. And
Speaker 1: also the vertical keyboard has these cushions or padding to
Speaker 1: rest the heel of your hand, so it should be
Speaker 1: more comfortable.
Speaker 2: I don't know why the halves of the keyboard have
Speaker 2: to be so far apart. Just look at this picture.
Speaker 1: I guess if they were closer, you'd look like mister
Speaker 1: Burns twiddling his fingers.
Speaker 2: As you type, which seems to me the goal.
Speaker 1: I love this futuristic kind of stuff, Like as a kid,
Speaker 1: other than on the jetsons, I could never have imagined
Speaker 1: people typing books on treadmills or like taking naps and
Speaker 1: giant eggs at work. And it'll be so fun to
Speaker 1: see how work changes in like the next twenty or
Speaker 1: thirty years.
Speaker 2: Oh definitely, Like they're already projections of keypads instead of
Speaker 2: real keyboard so you can just type in the air,
Speaker 2: and people working from self driving cars with Wi Fi
Speaker 2: like it feels commonplace now, but this would blow the
Speaker 2: minds of people thirty or forty years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I know you have some tips on how
Speaker 1: to increase productivity, not in a tailorism way, more in
Speaker 1: how to get things done way. But before we go
Speaker 1: to that, why don't we talk about two very different
Speaker 1: ergonomic chairs. So the first one I want to talk
Speaker 1: about is for pilots, and it comes from a paper
Speaker 1: from a journal called Science, Technology, and Human Values, but
Speaker 1: it's about military cockpit design. So basically, in World War two,
Speaker 1: ergonomics really started becoming a discipline, and it was important
Speaker 1: to the armed forces, especially because to operate this machinery
Speaker 1: correctly and safely and also with some regularity, you kind
Speaker 1: of needed to build things like tanks and planes and
Speaker 1: things to human specifications. So the term human engineering comes about,
Speaker 1: and the engineers were really smart about this. To make
Speaker 1: sure people could easily operate leg and hand controls and
Speaker 1: see all the gauges and displays, they came up with
Speaker 1: five critical drivers. They looked at the height of someone sitting,
Speaker 1: they looked at functional arm reach, leg length, buttock to
Speaker 1: knee length, and weight, and they basically designed a cockpit
Speaker 1: that could both safely be operated from and that could
Speaker 1: safely eject you if you were taller than five percent
Speaker 1: of the male population. So the idea was that basically
Speaker 1: everyone from the fifth percentile all the way through the
Speaker 1: ninety fifth percentile of men in the country could operate
Speaker 1: these machines pretty effectively, and it's kind of a landmark
Speaker 1: in ergonomic innovation. Here you've got this beautiful new plane
Speaker 1: where the dials and gages and buttons and steering wheel
Speaker 1: are all perfectly within reach for most of the population.
Speaker 2: Except I mean, what about the women here?
Speaker 1: Exactly? They designed this for men above a certain height,
Speaker 1: but at thirty four inches sitting height, which is what
Speaker 1: they were using, that excluded close to seventy percent of
Speaker 1: the female population because according to the paper, only approximately
Speaker 1: the sixty fifth through ninety fifth percentile female could operate
Speaker 1: the machinery. So weirdly, mass producer ergonomics have this greater
Speaker 1: implication on society.
Speaker 2: Which I guess isn't that surprising, Like if you think
Speaker 2: about the right handed scissors, that's excluding ten percent of
Speaker 2: the population right there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But it's even worse than that because since commercial
Speaker 1: aviation basically copied all their design and engineering from the military,
Speaker 1: there was what's called ergonomic bias spillover, and that goes
Speaker 1: into commercial airlines. As the paper notes, quote, it is
Speaker 1: not that women are not physically capable of flying these
Speaker 1: particular aircraft. Rather, the technical artifact has functioned to delineate
Speaker 1: the other.
Speaker 2: So what's the other ergonomic chair you wanted to talk about?
Speaker 1: So that one's kind of on the opposite end of
Speaker 1: the spectrum, and it's the guy who built the first
Speaker 1: modern ergonomic chair, a German Man named Frederick Wilhelm Dauphin.
Speaker 1: And it's nineteen sixty eight and he's hired by a
Speaker 1: British company as a consultant to look at how the
Speaker 1: computer is going to impact office furniture and he's supposed
Speaker 1: to advise them on production. But the company, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure whether it's funding or what, but they can't execute
Speaker 1: his vision. So he and his wife really believe in
Speaker 1: this idea of human centered design. So they do what
Speaker 1: all great startups do. They start tinkering in their garage
Speaker 1: back in Bavaria, and they designed this very affordable chair
Speaker 1: that has cutting edge ergonomics. It's a chair where you
Speaker 1: can adjust the height and back and it offers incredible
Speaker 1: posture support. He also creates the first synchronized mechanism for chairs,
Speaker 1: which I had to look up what men. It's when
Speaker 1: you tilt the back of your chair like twenty degrees,
Speaker 1: the seapan of the chair doesn't go back the full
Speaker 1: twenty degrees. It only moves like five or ten degrees,
Speaker 1: so you still feel like you're reclining, but you don't
Speaker 1: feel like you're going to tip back. And that's kind
Speaker 1: of standard on all chairs now. But the big thing
Speaker 1: for Dolphin and his wife Elkie, who was his partner
Speaker 1: in this, was to make sure that these things were
Speaker 1: stylish and affordable but also tailored to individual needs. So
Speaker 1: the adjusting the height was really important to him from
Speaker 1: the start. And that's kind of the opposite of the
Speaker 1: cockpit chair, which was kind of one size fits all,
Speaker 1: but really it was one size fits most men and
Speaker 1: some women. Anyway, this chair just takes off and revolutionizes
Speaker 1: office furniture across Europe and Americas, and today they are
Speaker 1: still producing about seventeen hundred office chairs every single day.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's pretty amazing. All right, Well, we've talked about
Speaker 2: how to sit, how to rest your eyes, when to stand,
Speaker 2: when to flop, But why don't we go through a
Speaker 2: few quick tips on getting stuff done?
Speaker 1: Great, you know I'm always looking for productivity tips.
Speaker 2: I know you are, except I'm going to quiz you here.
Speaker 1: Great, you know I'm always looking for quizzes.
Speaker 2: So okay, good, good, good, all right? So hot or cold?
Speaker 2: What is better for your office temperature?
Speaker 1: I mean personally, like my dad's from Goa and India's
Speaker 1: which is the beach. So you know I don't love
Speaker 1: the cold, so I'd go with hot.
Speaker 2: All right. Well you are one for one. Being too
Speaker 2: cold makes it harder to get things done. This comes
Speaker 2: from Fast Company, But Cornell actually did a study in
Speaker 2: an insurance office and when the temperature was low, like
Speaker 2: sixty eight degrees, employees committed forty four percent more errors
Speaker 2: than when the thermostat was set to seventy seven degrees.
Speaker 2: But warm temps are actually better for office politics too.
Speaker 1: How's that? So?
Speaker 2: The article goes on to say that there was a
Speaker 2: study in science where psychologists found that when people feel cold,
Speaker 2: their quote more likely to perceive others as less generous
Speaker 2: and hearing, and that the same area of the brain
Speaker 2: that lights up when we sense temperature, aka the insular cortex,
Speaker 2: is also active when we feel trust and empathy toward
Speaker 2: another person. So basically, when we experience warmth, we experience trust.
Speaker 1: Oh that's fascinating and such a good argument to my
Speaker 1: wife why we have to keep the temperatures toasty? In
Speaker 1: our house whenever I'm working. So what's next?
Speaker 2: All right, Well, how about having someone on a screen
Speaker 2: doing their work but kind of watching you aka the
Speaker 2: new trend of body doubling.
Speaker 1: You know, I hate when people look over my shoulder
Speaker 1: or watch me work, even when working in like Google docs,
Speaker 1: when someone else is in the dock. It feels like
Speaker 1: such an adjustment for me. So I'll guess not helpful.
Speaker 2: Well, it might not be helpful for you, but it's
Speaker 2: actually a great hack for people with ADHD. Like this
Speaker 2: is how an ADHD therapist named Billy Roberts explained it. Quote.
Speaker 2: ADHD is a disorder of executive functioning, the part of
Speaker 2: the brain that controls concentration, attention, activation of task, effort
Speaker 2: on task, and self control, to name a few. Having
Speaker 2: a person present during a less desirable task might increase
Speaker 2: the joy surrounding that task, similar to listening to empowering
Speaker 2: music while working, he says, and having another person there
Speaker 2: also makes you accountable, so you're less likely to procrastinate. Apparently,
Speaker 2: having a study buddy or this type of virtual body
Speaker 2: doubling helps people with ADHD by increasing their dopamine levels.
Speaker 2: And there are lots of websites and apps that help
Speaker 2: you find a body double.
Speaker 1: Body doubling sounds like such a sci fi term, you know,
Speaker 1: but that is really interesting. Also, it makes me feel
Speaker 1: a little guilty because both Lizzie and Henry are super
Speaker 1: adhd and when we're both working from home, Lizzie always
Speaker 1: suggests working from the same room and I'm just like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm good from over here. But it kind
Speaker 1: of gives me more empathy as they're doing their work.
Speaker 1: What else you got?
Speaker 2: All right? Last one afternoon coffees? What do you think?
Speaker 1: Ah, this is tough. I can see an argument either way,
Speaker 1: but maybe skip them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The latest research, and this is coming from psychology today,
Speaker 2: is that afternoon coffee confuses the brain, tricking your body
Speaker 2: into thinking it has more energy than it does. As
Speaker 2: the article points out, basically, it's pushing your body into
Speaker 2: overdrive and taxing its resources, which is what makes you crash,
Speaker 2: and the dependence throws off your biorrhythms. Like this is
Speaker 2: whole domino effect where you get worse sleep, which curbs
Speaker 2: your ability to de stress and causes inflammation.
Speaker 1: I love the idea that coffee throws off your bi rhythms,
Speaker 1: but like sitting for ten minutes, standing for five, and
Speaker 1: closing your eyes every twenty minutes is actually better for
Speaker 1: your health. YEP, I do really want to be healthier.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure this will all be in my head
Speaker 1: for a week. But I'm guessing I will do none
Speaker 1: of these things except raise the thermostat in my house.
Speaker 1: But you know what will definitely make me feel better.
Speaker 1: How about a little fact off.
Speaker 2: Let's do it all right, So bosses should appreciate their
Speaker 2: workers working from home, but you know who doesn't cats.
Speaker 2: According to an article on Mental Floss, cats are creatures
Speaker 2: of habit, so they like set patterns. So when people
Speaker 2: started working from home during the pandemic and no one
Speaker 2: had really run this by the cats, their routines got disrupted. Also,
Speaker 2: the article points out that they pick up on the
Speaker 2: emotions and vibes, so chaos from kids who had been
Speaker 2: at school, or you being allowed on a zoom or
Speaker 2: whatever it might have been, that was a change that
Speaker 2: also affects them. But eventually they will come around to
Speaker 2: the new routine. But the most interesting thing to me
Speaker 2: about the article was that it advises when you go
Speaker 2: back to the office, you don't want to deeply upset
Speaker 2: your cat, So to help them adjust to this new routine,
Speaker 2: you should wake up at the time you're planning to
Speaker 2: go in and start leaving the house for longer periods
Speaker 2: of time so they can adjust to the new routine.
Speaker 1: It's funny. It sounds more like you're trying to please
Speaker 1: a roommate than a pet. So here's another quick one
Speaker 1: that happens to evolve dogs. Do you know that workers
Speaker 1: comp can apply to work from home injuries? In twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: and Oregon court ruled that an interior designer was eligible
Speaker 1: for workers comp after she tripped on her dog while
Speaker 1: moving fabric samples to her garage.
Speaker 2: It is insane, that's wild, all right. Well, I think
Speaker 2: a lot of us have heard of the Pomodoro technique.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what where you use a timer to focus
Speaker 1: on a task for like twenty five minutes at a time,
Speaker 1: and you take little breaks after each one of those sets. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean it was already kind of a thing, and
Speaker 2: then it got more popular during lockdown. But I didn't
Speaker 2: realize it was created by a college kid in the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties. So apparently the student Francesco Cirillo, who was
Speaker 2: having a hard time focusing, so he kind of challenged
Speaker 2: himself to study or work for ten minutes at a time,
Speaker 2: and he found one of those vintage tomato shaped timers
Speaker 2: you can see and kitch aka the pomodoro, and he
Speaker 2: formed this technique. The other thing I didn't realize is
Speaker 2: that even though the technique is super simple, he actually
Speaker 2: kept building out different parts and suggestions for the method,
Speaker 2: and he wrote this one hundred and thirty page book
Speaker 2: about it, which led him to this long career as
Speaker 2: an efficiency consultant for everyone from software engineers to F
Speaker 2: one teams.
Speaker 1: That's pretty amazing. So I am trying to keep all
Speaker 1: of mine quick today. So here's another snappy one. Do
Speaker 1: you know that slack is actually an acronym? It stands
Speaker 1: for a searchable log of all conversation and knowledge?
Speaker 2: Wait? Is that real? Did you just make that up?
Speaker 1: But no, it's true.
Speaker 2: I had no idea. Well, there's a lot of talk
Speaker 2: about napping being good for you and how it benefits
Speaker 2: everyone from pilots to astronauts to creatives, but apparently napping
Speaker 2: was particularly popularized by the early Romans, who loved a
Speaker 2: sexta aura, meaning a sleep in the sixth hour of
Speaker 2: a waking day, which became known as the cs Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh, I love cstas so much in India. The fact
Speaker 1: that you like nap and have this quiet break after
Speaker 1: a lunch and then wake up and have tea and snacks.
Speaker 1: It's like my body is built for that. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go slightly longer on this one, but there are a
Speaker 1: number of studies on laughter in the office place, and
Speaker 1: apparently people who laughed at a comedy clip and then
Speaker 1: we're asked to do math problems in a lab, we're
Speaker 1: ten percent more productive than those who didn't, which, you know,
Speaker 1: I thought was interesting. But the other thing I thought
Speaker 1: was fascinating is that people who crack successful jokes are
Speaker 1: better perceived. So, according to a Harvard Business School professor
Speaker 1: Alison Woodbrooks, presenters who make successful jokes are quote perceived
Speaker 1: as more confident, more confident, and higher in status.
Speaker 2: I like that you said successful jokes, not just not
Speaker 2: just any joke.
Speaker 1: Yeah. According to the study, it's more sweet jokes that
Speaker 1: are confidently presented versus you know, Michael Scott type jokes
Speaker 1: that are inappropriate.
Speaker 2: Actually, I could see that that makes sense. All right, Well,
Speaker 2: here's one that's kind of fun to end on, at
Speaker 2: least for me. So Amtrak's Quiet Car has a huge
Speaker 2: following of loyal travelers and people who swear by how
Speaker 2: much they can get done on it. But one thing
Speaker 2: I didn't realize is that it was actually an idea
Speaker 2: that came about from commuters. In an interview in Fortune,
Speaker 2: the company's former chief marketing officer explained how basically cell
Speaker 2: phone chatter was ubiquitous on trains, and this group of
Speaker 2: regular commuters begged the conductor to set aside a noise
Speaker 2: free zone, and as soon as he did, the idea
Speaker 2: took off, and Amtrak expanded the Quiet Car to its
Speaker 2: entire fleet. But if you look up Amtrak's Quiet Car online,
Speaker 2: you can find that people have written odes and poetry
Speaker 2: to it, and they're fanatical about it. And so I
Speaker 2: thought i'd end with this quote from a Yahoo Travel
Speaker 2: story in praise of the Quiet Car. Here's how it reads.
Speaker 2: As a proud member of the Quiet Car Nation, I
Speaker 2: will admit that we may be overzealous in our efforts
Speaker 2: to preserve, protect, and defend it, but that's for good reason.
Speaker 2: In this hyper connected world, the Quiet Car is one
Speaker 2: of the few places we have left where we are
Speaker 2: out of reach of our busy home, social, and work lives.
Speaker 2: Here we can sit with like minded people enjoying our
Speaker 2: silent utopia and just be so. Let us celebrate the
Speaker 2: quiet car, the last bastion of civilized travel. Let us
Speaker 2: cherish it, let us protect it. Let us sing its praises,
Speaker 2: just not too loudly.
Speaker 1: Oh I like that, and I feel like it needs
Speaker 1: like patriotic music behind it as you give that speech.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: I don't know how I can't give this to you,
Speaker 1: So I'm going to silently hand over this week's trophy.
Speaker 2: I love it. I felt good about ending on that one.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, that's it for this week's Part Time Genius.
Speaker 2: Now remember, if you like our show, please rate it review.
Speaker 2: It makes us so happy to know you people are listening. Also,
Speaker 2: we love hearing from you, but more importantly, our moms
Speaker 2: love hearing from you, and they have loved so many
Speaker 2: of the notes that have come in recently, so right
Speaker 2: to us at ptgeniusmomsatgmail dot com. Our moms always passed
Speaker 2: these amazing messages along from Dylan, Mango, Mary and me.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: This show is hosted by Will Pearson and me Mongash
Speaker 1: Heatikler and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan
Speaker 1: Fagan with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive
Speaker 1: produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with
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