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 my queue there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you man. 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 to 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 2: Then he's more considered the father of occupational medicine. And
Speaker 2: his contribution is mostly in linking repetitive work to pains
Speaker 2: and disorders, but it is interesting he also notes the
Speaker 2: mental stresses on people who are doing things like accounting work.
Speaker 2: These people have to get the numbers right to keep
Speaker 2: their jobs, and so there's immense pressure on them. And
Speaker 2: he's also looking at things like environmental conditions, so he
Speaker 2: notices the breathing difficulties that millers get and the asthma
Speaker 2: that they get from all these like powders and things
Speaker 2: in the air. And he's quoted as saying it's far
Speaker 2: better to prevent than to cure. So he's really.
Speaker 1: Ahead of his time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no kidding. But to your question.
Speaker 1: About ergonomics, the word ergonomics gets coin in the eighteen
Speaker 1: fifties and this is by a Polish author and it
Speaker 1: kind of means the science of work or laws of work,
Speaker 1: and it isn't really until about one hundred years later
Speaker 1: that it takes on its current meaning of fitting a
Speaker 1: job to a person or a body. But before we
Speaker 1: get into that, I want to talk briefly about the
Speaker 1: concept 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 believed 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 management, 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
Speaker 1: quote it's hard to overstate how far efficiency engineers went
Speaker 1: to measure and survey of workers' bodies. They used stopwatches,
Speaker 1: photographed and film workers, and tied light bulbs to workers
Speaker 1: fingers 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 amen'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: temp 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, The workers can do.
Speaker 1: A little better, but their bodies are going to take
Speaker 1: a toll for it. And there's an interesting side note here,
Speaker 1: a bunch of the more skilled workers start to push back.
Speaker 1: As the Jacobin article points out, quote the diversion experiences
Speaker 1: of machinists and shovelers was pretty illustrative. So the shovelers
Speaker 1: were less organized and easier to replace, and they were
Speaker 1: really pushed to the limit by the efficiency experts. One
Speaker 1: study from the time actually showed that they ended up
Speaker 1: heaving two hundred and seventy percent more tonnage than before
Speaker 1: the consultants arrived. Wow, so they're working their tails off.
Speaker 1: It is brutal and its backbreaking work. And meanwhile, the
Speaker 1: machinists actually have some leverage. They kind of hold their
Speaker 1: trade secrets close to them and they unionize their response
Speaker 1: and this ends up protecting them because when managers try
Speaker 1: to control them, they act collectively and can better dictate terms. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this all leads 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 fit
Speaker 1: leagued 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. That 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 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 protractor.
Speaker 2: If you don't know what a right angle is, or
Speaker 2: if you've got those ready, I'll continue here. One your
Speaker 2: knees should be about level with the hips when you
Speaker 2: are seated, with your thighs parallel to the floor, So
Speaker 2: clearly sitting on a high stool or a bean bag
Speaker 2: is not ideal. Two your hands should be at or
Speaker 2: below elbow level with the wrist straight. Three. If your
Speaker 2: desk has a hard edge, you should pad the edge
Speaker 2: to protect your wrist from the contact stress. So this
Speaker 2: includes laptops, Like if you're resting your wrist on a
Speaker 2: hard laptop, you'll want padding there. And four, if you're
Speaker 2: using a monitor, that should be no closer to you
Speaker 2: 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 admit,
Speaker 2: when I read many of these things, I violated almost
Speaker 2: every single one of them.
Speaker 1: I also have no idea how far my computer screen
Speaker 1: is for me any time.
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 neck I posture reasons?
Speaker 1: Why is that distance so important? It actually prevents both
Speaker 1: eyestrain and next strain. Though, if you're looking to protect
Speaker 1: your eyes, the other thing you're supposed to do is
Speaker 1: follow the twenty twenty twenty rules. So this is where
Speaker 1: every twenty minutes you're supposed to take a twenty second
Speaker 1: break to look at an object twenty feet away. This
Speaker 1: rule was developed by an optometrist from California name Jeffrey Anshell,
Speaker 1: and this was a way to help people avoid headaches
Speaker 1: and eyestrain. But you can also close your eyes for
Speaker 1: twenty seconds and that has 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 angle you should say 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: increases your risk for a whole host of different diseases.
Speaker 2: I mean everything from Parkinson's two strokes, to cancers, two
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 for this?
Speaker 2: You'll need to turn to the International Ergonomics and Human
Speaker 2: Factors Association, which I don't think you knew a whole
Speaker 2: lot about before this episode, and they recommend sitting for
Speaker 2: ten minutes, then standing up for five, and then repeating
Speaker 2: that throughout the day. So 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 can 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 minutes,
Speaker 1: so like none of those numbers really line up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's it's uh, it's interesting. I mean, if
Speaker 2: you can't pull off the ten minutes sitting, five minutes
Speaker 2: standing routine, there's an alternative that can help your workflow.
Speaker 2: You can work for twenty minutes, take a two minute
Speaker 2: active break. That's like second best option here. But when
Speaker 2: you do that, you can also close your eyes for
Speaker 2: the first twenty seconds or just naturally look around. But
Speaker 2: hopefully you're not taking this active break and closing your
Speaker 2: eyes for the first twenty seconds, because that seems dangerous
Speaker 2: 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 gonna go with
Speaker 1: option too, But is there a third place? The truth is, like,
Speaker 1: if you're writing or researching, I feel like you get
Speaker 1: in a flow and then you just forget 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 start
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.
Speaker 1: I go. I love the branding. What's the stop, drop
Speaker 1: 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 side,
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 chairs
Speaker 1: with my laptop on my lap probably isn't the best way. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I actually don't see anybody advocating for that, and I'm
Speaker 2: guilty of it as well. I mean, the bottom line
Speaker 2: is that chairs are complicated. So I was looking at
Speaker 2: self dot com. They interviewed a board certified physical therapist
Speaker 2: and an orthopedic specialist about this very topic. And there
Speaker 2: are just a lot of components here, but mostly you
Speaker 2: want a firm, flat cushion chair, good Lombard support, Like
Speaker 2: a lot of really nice cushiony chairs have that seat
Speaker 2: tilted upward in the front, and that actually puts stress
Speaker 2: on your spine and tilts your pelvis backwards, which isn't
Speaker 2: that kind.
Speaker 1: Of like how we all drive. I guess that's bad
Speaker 1: 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 sacram and 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 a perfect landing and gymnastics
Speaker 1: or something. It feels like exactly chair setting should be
Speaker 1: its own sport. But I feel like we've been chatting
Speaker 1: for a bit and I am overdue for my stop,
Speaker 1: drop and flop, which I do all the time now,
Speaker 1: So why don't we take a two minute break and
Speaker 1: we'll 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 diabetically 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, h and you're
Speaker 1: typing vertically, reduces that strain. It's almost like you're shaking
Speaker 1: hands with the keyboard.
Speaker 2: And that's supposed to help.
Speaker 1: I guess because your hands aren't resting on a hard surface,
Speaker 1: you're you're less likely to get that restrain. And also
Speaker 1: the vertical keyboard has these cushions or padding to rest
Speaker 1: the heel of your hand, so it should be 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: But 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 imagined people
Speaker 1: typing books on treadmills, or like taking naps and giant
Speaker 1: eggs at work. And it'll be so fun to see
Speaker 1: how work changes in the next twenty or 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 productty not in a tailorism way, more in
Speaker 1: how to get things down 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 like
Speaker 1: machinery correctly and safely, and also with some regularity. You
Speaker 1: kind of need to build things like tanks and planes
Speaker 1: and things to human specifications, So the term human engineering
Speaker 1: comes about. And the engineers were really smart about this.
Speaker 1: To make sure people could easily operate leg and hand
Speaker 1: controls and see all the gauges and displays, they came
Speaker 1: up with five critical drivers. They looked at the height
Speaker 1: of someone sitting, they looked at functional arm reach, leg length,
Speaker 1: buttock to knee length, and weight, and they basically designed
Speaker 1: a cockpit that could both safely be operated from and
Speaker 1: that could safely eject you if you were taller than
Speaker 1: five percent of the male population. So the idea was
Speaker 1: that basically everyone from the fifth percentile all the way
Speaker 1: through the ninety fifth percentile of men in the country
Speaker 1: could operate these machines pretty effectively. And it's kind of
Speaker 1: a landmark in ergonomic innovation. Here you've got this beautiful
Speaker 1: new plane where the dials and gages and buttons and
Speaker 1: steering wheel are all perfectly within reach for most of
Speaker 1: the population, except, I.
Speaker 2: 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 it meant. It's
Speaker 1: when 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 firm sure across Europe and Americas, and today they
Speaker 1: are 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?
Speaker 2: So? The article goes on to say that there was
Speaker 2: a study in science where psychologists found that when people
Speaker 2: feel cold, they're quote more likely to perceive others as
Speaker 2: less generous and caring, and that the same area of
Speaker 2: the brain that lights up when we sense temperature, aka
Speaker 2: the insular cortex, is also active when we feel trust
Speaker 2: and empathy toward another person. So basically, when we experience warmth,
Speaker 2: 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. H, 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 could 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 bio 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.
Speaker 2: Fact off, let's do it all right, So bosses should
Speaker 2: appreciate their workers working from home, but you know who
Speaker 2: doesn't cats. According to an article on Mental Floss, cats
Speaker 2: are creatures of habit so they like set patterns. So
Speaker 2: when people started working from home during the pandemic and
Speaker 2: no one had really run this by the cats, their
Speaker 2: routines got disrupted. Also, the article points out that they
Speaker 2: pick up on the emotions and vibes, so chaos from
Speaker 2: kids who had been at school, or you being allowed
Speaker 2: on a zoom or whatever it might have been, that
Speaker 2: was a change that also affects them. But eventually they
Speaker 2: will come around to the new routine. But the most
Speaker 2: interesting thing to me about the article was that it
Speaker 2: advises when you go back to the office, you don't
Speaker 2: want to deeply upset your cat, So to help them
Speaker 2: adjust to this new routine, you should wake up at
Speaker 2: the time you're planning to go in and start leaving
Speaker 2: the house for longer periods of time so they can
Speaker 2: 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 in kitchens, 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 siesta.
Speaker 1: Oh, I love siesta 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 going
Speaker 1: to go slightly longer on this one. But there are
Speaker 1: a number of studies on laughter in the office place,
Speaker 1: and apparently people who laughed at a comedy clip and
Speaker 1: then were asked to do math problems in a lab,
Speaker 1: we're ten percent more productive than those who didn't, which,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought was interesting. But the other thing
Speaker 1: I thought was fascinating is that people who crack successful
Speaker 1: jokes are better perceived. So, according to a Harvard Business
Speaker 1: School professor Alison Woodbrooks, presenters who make successful jokes are
Speaker 1: quote perceived as more are competent, more confident, and hire
Speaker 1: 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: Mm hmm that actually I could see that. That makes sense.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, here's one that's kind of fun to
Speaker 2: end on, at least for me. So Amtrak's quiet Car
Speaker 2: has a huge following of loyal travelers and people who
Speaker 2: swear by how much they can get done on it.
Speaker 2: But one thing I didn't realize is that it was
Speaker 2: actually an idea that came about from commuters. In an
Speaker 2: interview in Fortune, the company's former chief marketing officer explained
Speaker 2: how basically cell phone chatter was ubiquitous on trains, and
Speaker 2: this group of regular commuters begged the conductor to set
Speaker 2: aside a noise free zone, and as soon as he did,
Speaker 2: the idea took off, and Amtrak expanded the Quiet Car
Speaker 2: to its entire fleet. But if you look up Amtrak's
Speaker 2: Quiet Car online, you can find that people have written
Speaker 2: odes and poetry to it. They're fanatical about it, And
Speaker 2: so I thought it'd end with this quote from a
Speaker 2: Yahoo Travel story in praise of the Quiet Car. Here's
Speaker 2: how it reads. As a proud member of the Quiet
Speaker 2: Car Nation, I will admit that we may be over
Speaker 2: zealous in our efforts to preserve, protect, and defend it,
Speaker 2: but that's for good reason. In this hyper connected world,
Speaker 2: the Quiet car is one of the few places we
Speaker 2: have left where we are out of reach of our
Speaker 2: busy home, social, and work lives. Here we can sit
Speaker 2: with like minded people, enjoying our silent utopia and just
Speaker 2: be so. Let us celebrate the Quiet Car, the last
Speaker 2: bastion of civilized travel. Let us cherish it, let us
Speaker 2: protect it, let us sing its praises. 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 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 write
Speaker 2: to us at PT Genius Moms at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: Our moms always passed these amazing messages along from Dylan, Mango,
Speaker 2: Mary and me. 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 Mongshatikler
Speaker 1: and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's
Speaker 1: episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan
Speaker 1: with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced
Speaker 1: for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and Ali Perry, with social
Speaker 1: media support from Sasha Gay Trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shoory.
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