My standing desk set up. You can tell I haven't done any cable management lately.

In August I pulled a muscle in my back. It was bad enough that sitting for long periods of time became uncomfortable. This was a big problem because, well, I sit all day long while I work. About a year ago I wrote about my efforts to sit less, which included using a standing station for my laptop sometimes. In that post I outlined all of the mounting research that suggests that sitting all day long can be bad for you. After that I continued to make a conscious effort to stand and move more in general.

Still, I spent most of my working day at my desk, using my keyboard, mouse, and dual monitors. After hurting my back though, I needed a way to stay standing up for the majority of the working day to keep my back loose and pain free. After some looking online, I decided to just pick up a small, lightweight coffee table at Target for $24 and placed it on top of my existing desk. It just so happened that it had the perfect dimensions for me: everything fit on the tabletop and the height was perfect typing height. You can see what it looks like in the picture above. Nothing really special about it. I also picked up an anti-fatigue mat for $20 on Amazon after seeing Gina Trapani recommend it when she switched to a standing desk. It was well worth every penny, and then some. The difference it makes on my feet is huge.

Let me tell you: I was exhausted those first few days. It’s just standing right? How tiring can it be? As someone who stays in pretty good shape, I don’t think I’ve been that tired and sore since double sessions when I played football in high school. Ironman triathlete Ben Greenfield considers his standing desk to be a form of cross-training!

At first that sounds crazy, but when you think about it, it’s not so crazy. Let’s say I sleep an average of 8 hours a night. Previously I probably spent the majority of those remaining 16 hours sitting. Even with a workout in there and some walks and cooking and whatnot, I was probably spending…2, 3, maybe 4 hours standing max on an average day. Now that’s flip-flopped – I’m probably only sitting for a few hours a day and standing maybe 10 hours a day (on the days I work from home). It’s no wonder that it was such a shock to my body.

That said, I feel great. My body acclimated pretty quickly to standing so much. Just as if I was running a lot or biking a lot, I make sure to spend a lot of time stretching and using my foam roller. While it’s impossible to quantify, I feel more productive when I’m standing. I’m that guy who has to stand up and move around when he talks on the phone because I’m antsy/excited, so maybe this is just a natural extension of that. It’s also kind of fun to turn web development into an endurance activity. I feel like I’m using both my mind and my body to get my work done! Then when the day is over, it feels really good to sit down and relax mentally and physically.

I do try to take regular breaks to sit still (even when I’m standing I’m always moving, which is good because using a standing desk without movement can be bad too). Some days, especially if my legs are tired/sore from a workout, I would like to have the option of sitting to work while still using my full setup. For now, I just unplug my laptop and go sit at the kitchen table for a few hours. Eventually I’d like a GeekDesk – you can preset it to multiple heights and it uses a motor to adjust the desk to one of your presets. I could go from standing to sitting instantly

Anyway, I know there are a lot of people out there who have quit their job recently or are considering doing so. I figured it a worthwhile exercise to sort of step back and look at how life has gone since that day in January of ’06 when I turned in my two-week notice.

I’ve always, out of respect to my former employer, made sure not to mention them by name when blogging or tell any stories that were overly specific. Now that it’s been a while and I’ve seen all of my “secret” projects come to market a long time ago, it seems rather pointless to keep up. I was a Quality Control Engineer in the R&D department at Schick, the razor company. As my friends always liked to say, I was the guy working on whether or not we could tack on a sixth blade safely

While I had only been a full-time engineer there for one year, I had been there for nine months as a co-op back in 2003 and had continued some of my projects once back in college. So in reality I had really been there for almost exactly three years when I left. They had been very good to me, so in a lot of ways it was hard to leave. There were a lot of good people there. However, I’ve never ever regretted leaving, or even really thought about it, so there is no doubt in my mind that it was the right decision and that the timing was right.

I think in almost every way I’m better off than I would have been had I continued on at Schick. I feel like I have more “job security” than I would working for a large corporation that could be suspect to sweeping layoffs. I have a flexible schedule that allows me to make sure that I never miss out on something I really want to do. I feel like I’m a healthier person because I’ve been able to use that flexibility to ensure that most of the time I’m sleeping well, eating right, and exercising. Maybe most importantly, I get to wake up every day and work with great people on something I believe in and really enjoy. Not that it’s always easy or that every little task is always fun, but on most days it’s pretty easy for me to see how good I have it and how lucky I am.

I’m also glad that I’ve moved back to NY. It took me a while to fully be content with that part of it, but I’ve been able to spend far more time with my close friends and family than I ever would have. My little sister is a junior in high school and I’ve been able to watch her grow up and hang out with her a few times a week. That just wouldn’t have been possible if I was living in another state, even if it was only a 3 hour drive away.

I *may* have been better off financially had I continued on the corporate career path. Schick was going to pay for me to go back to school. I was contemplating getting a MBA from Yale, NYU, or Columbia. Had I done that while continuing to work I most definitely would have made more money than I have these past five years. Then again, I wouldn’t have been building a growing company that I had equity in, which I hope will end up paying off in the long term. And even if I somehow end up making less than I would have on that career track, it doesn’t really matter to me. I wouldn’t have had the quality of life that I have now.

I also feel like I’ve learned more about myself and money, and how little it matters to me by having to scrape by on next to nothing for a while. I used to spend pretty freely on stuff, just because I thought it was cool, only to not use it or to resell it a few months later. I was a big time collector of stuff I didn’t use or need (I guess being into sports collectibles makes you that way by default). Now, I live in what I consider to be the nicest place I’ve ever lived, and it’s very simple, clean, and neat, which is what I like. When I buy something, it’s something that I really think I’ll use and benefit from. I can’t remember the last purchase of over $100 that I’ve regretted a few months later. I used to do that all the time in college.

I’ve written before about how excited I am for what we’re doing in 2011 so I’m not going to rehash that, other than to say that we’re off to a great start, February was a killer month for us. This business, as it stands, wasn’t exactly what I envisioned when I left – in a lot of ways I didn’t know what to expect – but it’s been an incredible five years that I wouldn’t trade for anything. I used to think that I was busting ass to “trade” my twenties for a “better” life down the road. In the midst of that I’ve learned to really just enjoy the journey, to enjoy putting in a good solid days worth of work.

Jason Fried on Twitter a few weeks ago

Remember back in 2008 when I absolutely hated Winter? At that time I was fairly certain that within a few years I’d either start spending my winter somewhere down South or move out of the Northeast all together. Now, a few years later, I surprisingly don’t mind winter. In fact, I’m sort of enjoying winter.

What changed?

The Weather

First and foremost, the weather has changed the past two winters. Since Albany is not in the mountains, not on the coast, and not near any of the great lakes, and since the temperatures have been a bit warmer (because of global warming, or maybe because of randomness), we actually have had much milder winters than places like Virginia and D.C that are much further south.

Then there’s the fluky snow storms in Florida and Texas. How mad would I be if I hauled myself somewhere else for a month and it still snowed. I’ve been paying more attention to the national weather, and when I see images that look like this I realize that it’s cold almost no matter where you go:

Still, we’ve had one decent sized snow storm this year and it really didn’t change my mind much. So long as it’s not a monster storm every week for the entire winter, I can deal with it.

Little (Big) Changes I’ve Made

More importantly, I think, are the other changes I’ve made.

Having a better living situation definitely helps. My current apartment has much more space than I’ve had previously. Having four or five different areas where I can work or relax makes me feel much less antsy when I’m inside more frequently.

I’ve made a commitment to getting outside more often too. If I bundle up with a hat and gloves I’m plenty warm to go for a walk. Even something as simple as walking up to the mailbox (about a 10 minute walk for me) makes me feel a lot better.

I’ve also tried to minimize or eliminate all of the little things I hated about winter. I stopped being an idiot and bought plenty of warm clothes, a humidifier, a bottle of lotion for every room that I’m in regularly, and some of this bad-ass Einszett de-icing spray from DI that eliminates the need for me to ever use my scraper.

A big pet peeve of mine is missing a workout, so I made sure going in to this winter that I put together several intense workouts that I can do at home with minimal equipment on days when going to the gym just doesn’t isn’t feasible.

I’m Not Angry at Winter Any More

The biggest difference though is philosophically. People are happier and more motivated when they embrace winter instead of complaining about it. There’s a certain simplicity that I’ve come to enjoy. Since there is naturally less to do, it gives me time to relax, read, catch up with friends over coffee, and of course have some long uninterrupted stretches to accomplish work.

There’s also an interesting by-product of this recent change in attitude. One of the big perks that my partners and I have is the flexibility to take extended amounts of time off, the best example being when Mike went to China for a month earlier this year. I always thought I’d be spending my trips “wintering” elsewhere. Now, I’m more open to the idea of traveling to more places at more times of the year. I already have a few smaller vacations planned for this year, but I’m hoping to plan out a longer extended trip like Mike took by the middle of the year. As of now, I have no idea where that will be…but it’s fun to ponder!

Real quickly I learned that isolating yourself doesn’t make you happy, that relationships are as much a part of happiness as doing work you enjoy.

I think this actualization is quite common amongst new business owners, especially those who are in their twenties. The reason being that up until this point you’ve never had to work for your social life. It was all right there in front of you. High school, college, and work all provided the opportunities you needed to meet new people and do new things.

Think about it: how did you meet most of your friends? I bet it was through school, work, or mutual friends/family. Now, as soon as you leave school and your job you immediately cut those out of the equation, making the third method all the more difficult (if you’re not meeting new people at work, it’s much harder to then meet people through your network of work friends since it’s non-existent).

As much as I detested my job at times, there was a ton of opportunity to commiserate and bond at the water cooler, at lunch, at happy hour, or at the many company functions. There were also thousands of people at my company, just like in high school and in college. You’re always being introduced to new people. Not so much the case when you work in a warehouse with guys you’ve known your entire life.

This realization didn’t come very quickly for me. Not just because this was a new unknown social dynamic, but because I was so damn focused on the business. I was trying to justify my decision to give up my career. Building a profitable business took everything I had. I’d often lose track of the day and the time, completely de-synchronizing myself from the 9-5, Monday – Friday schedule that everyone else has.

Leaving my job also introduced another new life-variable in to the equation: going against the grain. Up until that point I did everything I was “supposed” to do. The stuff that mom’s love to tell their friends about. I did good in school, got in to a great college, graduated at the top of my class, and went to work for a big company. I wasn’t supposed to quit after one year and move back home. When I told people, they didn’t know what to think. For the first time in my life, people were doubting my decisions. I heard whispers at work from people wondering why I really put in my two week notice (“did he get into a fight with his manager?”). I had a friend ask me “where are you going to work when you get home?” right after I just gave him the five minute pitch about my plans for SportsLizard. It was very frustrating, and I’m sure there were much worse things said that I don’t know about. All of a sudden, I had doubters. Being the competitive guy I am, I adopted a “me against the world” mentality. To some extent I still have that. All it takes is one snide comment from someone who doesn’t take us seriously to get it back. And while that may be good for my work productivity, it also drove me to isolate myself even more.

On top of everything else, I’m more of an introvert than I am an extrovert, so I had that working against me too. (I once read that the difference between an introvert and an extrovert is that introverts like to relax by spending time alone, whereas extroverts like to relax by spending time with others. By that definition, I’m introverted. I love spending time with others, and I tend to be pretty social when I’m doing so, but after a stressful day I’d much prefer reading a book by myself to going out to a bar with a group of people).

The good news in all of this is that now, nearly five years later, I can confidently say that I have a great social life. I meet new people, I have many many great friends, I have a wonderful girlfriend, and I spend time with all of my family (cousins and grandparents too, not just my parents and sister). Part of it has to do with the fact that our business has become more successful, leaving me less stressed that I need to be working 24 x 7 x 365, although I think the most important factor is that I’ve realized that given my work situation I’ll have to put more effort into my social life than I did in the past, probably more effort than most people have to

More specifically, here are some of the things that I have found helpful:

Don’t resent the time and effort – I try to stay focused on doing whatever I’m doing. If I’m working, I work. If I’m eating dinner with my family, I eat dinner and conversate and do my best not to think about what I could be doing if I was working, or that I should be working instead of spending time with my family. I try really, really hard to not answer my cell phone or texts when I’m out with people. There’s nothing worse than someone constantly buried in their phone – they’re physically “there” but they aren’t “there”.

Choose people over hobbies – this wasn’t obvious to me at first, I sort of accidentally fell in to this one. I find that I’m much happier doing more socially and having less time to do things like play video games, read or customize. Spending more time alone after spending all day working alone doesn’t work very well for me.

Live where you know people – you’re already at a disadvantage socially by working for yourself. While tempting, I don’t think it’s wise to up and move to just anywhere unless you have a few friends there, ideally in different social circles.

Keep in touch – I do my best to keep in touch with all of the people that I’ve encountered in life that I’m really happy to be friends with. It takes some effort, and sometimes we’re only able to get together once every two years, but keeping those relationships instead of letting them die has really helped me.

Go where they are – my friends are busy. We’re all almost 30, which means wives and kids and houses for many of them. If we’re meeting for lunch, I try to suggest some place close to where they work. If I can make it easy on their schedule I know it’s more likely to happen.

Find other ways to meet people – whether it’s a church group or softball league or cooking class or something else. Believe it or not, I’ve met a ton of great people through blogging. In fact, most of the good friends I’ve met since leaving my job have been in one way or another related to running this blog.

Don’t turn down opportunities – I say “yes” more than I ever have before. If I can fit it in my schedule, I try to do it.

Get out to work sometime – you might not meet people at Starbucks, but just getting out and being in a social setting helps decrease the feeling of isolation, especially if you work alone from home all day.

Treat weekends differently than weekdays – I wish I was consulted when someone decided that we should all work 8 hours, 5 days per week. I would have asked that guy “why?” a lot. Regardless, that’s how most people work, so I’ve tried to adjust my schedule accordingly. I do take time off on weekdays and I do work on weekends, but on average I do most of my work during the week and most of my social stuff on the weekends.

—

I’ve had this post queued up in my brain for a while now. I’m glad I finally got a chance to get it all out. How about you guys? I know many of you are in a similar situation to mine. I’m interested to hear how similar or different your experience has been.

Sometimes though, we’ll pose a business related question. Like “how much would someone have to pay you to teach basic computer skills to the elderly every day for two years?”, or more realistically, “how much would Google/Facebook/Twitter have to pay you to relocate to Silicon Valley and work for them for ___ years?”

Most people would jump at an opportunity like that. This is only an interesting question to us because we all value the lifestyle that our business has created. I generally assume that if you move into an important role with a fast growing, competitive, high-tech company like the aforementioned, that you’ll be working a lot of hours, traveling a lot, and be working in a more stressful environment.

I – like my partners – certainly have my price, but it’s very very high. Almost no company could match the quality of life that I have right now. Consider:

• I have great flexibility with my time. I work two days a week from the warehouse from 9 AM to 3 PM. Otherwise I control when, where, and how I work, and how I balance my work with my personal life. Even the warehouse time can be shifted around – Mike was able to take a month-long trip to China and we simply shifted our resources to accommodate that.
• I have great flexibility with my work load. I can control what I work on and when I work on it. If I’m having a super busy week personally, it’s generally no big deal to push my work back a week or two, so long as I do my day to day tasks and communicate my plans with the team.
• I get to work on exciting, innovative, and challenging projects, which means I’m often choosing to work instead of do other things because I am truly more interested in, say, building a new feature on LockerPulse than I am playing the latest video game.
• I find it highly rewarding to work with great people who are also good friends of mine. I want success for them as much as I want it for myself.

In almost every way, I’m working in my ideal situation. If I was handed a ton of money tomorrow, not all that much would change with how I lived. I mean, I might go on a crazy spending spree for a little while, but I think I’d settle back into a lifestyle very similar to what I’ve got now. In a sense, I’d probably “retire” to what I’m doing right now.

When I think about this, I’m always reminded of the parable of the Mexican fisherman from The 4-Hour Workweek (I posted the full excerpt back in 2007) Once you have all of your basic needs met, you have to ask yourself – what do you want to accomplish with your work? Do you want to make as much money as possible? Do you want a high-status job? Do you want a flexible lifestyle? Do you not want to have to answer to anyone else? Do you want to have a large impact on the world? Do you want to be famous?

There’s no “right” answer, and none of those necessarily exclude you from doing any of the others. I look at 37Signals as the prime example of a company that I’d aspire to own. They’re “small” by many standards. They’re bootstrapped. They don’t have a lot of employees. They’re flexible in terms of work hours and locations. Yet, no one can deny that they’ve had huge impact. They have an immensely popular suite of web applications, a blog with over 140,000 subscribers, a NY Times Best Selling book, they do seminars from their new offices, and oh yeah, they started Ruby on Rails, the open source programming framework that has been the foundation for the success of many other web startups.

I feel like from the time we’re little kids we’re conditioned to pursue the highest paying, highest status jobs. Companies are supposed to be grown to be as big as they possibly can be, in every sense of the term. But if you value your time, your relationships, your health, the enjoyment that your work gives you, and the impact that your work has on others, it becomes a much deeper question.

JMU Talk

The first few days were spent in Harrisonburg, Virginia at James Madison University where I gave my “Entrepreneurship as a Career Choice” talk. Previously I had just spoken to individual classes of say 15 – 30 people. This time Prof. Wales and the business school at JMU decided to have me do one large presentation instead of several smaller ones. They opened it up to the entire school and promoted it through the business school’s Facebook account and around campus with flyers. In addition to his three classes, there was another professor who had his students attend, and there were also some walk-ins who must have seen the flyers or the Facebook account.

When I walked in, I was taken back by how full the large lecture hall was…especially considering it was a Friday afternoon at 2:30 PM. It was jam packed – there were kids standing in the back and sitting on the stairs. Prof. Wales actually had to go check that the room hadn’t accidentally been double-booked. As usual, I try to tell my story as fast as possible and then open the session back up to the students for questions. I make it my goal to try to show them that I’m willing to talk about anything related to my business experiences. Once I answer a few tough questions, the flood gates open up and they asked me anything and everything about my personal life and our business…and I answer every single question as best I can. My “Discussion Topics” slide that I have on screen during the Q&A also worked well again, helping spark some of those questions:

Afterward probably ten students came up and asked me questions, which again I thought was awesome for a Friday afternoon. I always encourage them to email me if they have any questions, and many of them often do. Even if I don’t know the answer to their questions, I can often point them in the right direction of someone or some resource that does. There is definitely no shortage of college students out there who want to try their hand at starting a business. I love that Prof. Wales puts together such a fantastic entrepreneurship program for these kids. At the end of my presentation he also announced a “web ventures” class that he will be teaching starting next semester as a follow-up to the entrepreneurship course. For students who take both, they’ll have started multiple real businesses while in college. They have weeks, not months or years, to try to generate profits. While theory certainly has it’s place, you don’t know if something is for you until you actually do it. These classes give students the chance to try their hand at a viable career option. I wish more colleges and more programs built these types of courses into their curriculum. His class is the #1 most popular elective in the entire school. To me that shows how intrigued kids are by entrepreneurship.

The Rest of the Trip

I spent the rest of the trip in Virginia and North Carolina visiting friends and family. I attended my first Virginia Tech football game in Blacksburg. I had my first southern BBQ in North Carolina. I met a ton of interesting people. Everyone was so nice and so accommodating. It’s so much more fun traveling somewhere when you know people who live there and can show you around. In a lot of ways I wish I stretched the trip out a little longer.

Culturally, the only real oddity (besides the Southern accents) was that restaurants just automatically split up your checks when you eat out in groups. So if four people go out to eat, you get four separate checks. In the Northeast they bring you one check and you divvy it up yourself. You can ask for separate checks, but if you have a large group at a busy restaurant it’s definitely seen as an annoyance for the wait staff. I don’t really prefer one way to another, just found it interesting.

In total, I drove about 25 hours. For the most part I don’t mind taking a road trip solo. In a lot of ways I prefer being able to listen to what I want, stop for food when I want to, and hit the road in the morning as early or late as I want to. Still, by the last few hours of the last day I was sick of being in the car.

Work

While I was gone I didn’t do much work – just checked email 1-2 times/day and Skype’d in for our Monday meeting (the group video call feature worked great). I did however have a very interesting series of email and phone chats regarding a big opportunity for LockerPulse. I signed a NDA so I can’t say anything yet, but it’s the type of thing that could end up being huge for LP and our business if it works out. I’ll likely be working a ton of extra hours the rest of the year when you combine this LP stuff with the crazy DI holiday season, but to be honest it really doesn’t bother me. These times are why I love being a web developer and a business owner. Should be fun!

Here’s an excerpt from the NY Times article:

It doesn’t matter if you go running every morning, or you’re a regular at the gym. If you spend most of the rest of the day sitting — in your car, your office chair, on your sofa at home — you are putting yourself at increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers and an early death. In other words, irrespective of whether you exercise vigorously, sitting for long periods is bad for you.

That, at least, is the conclusion of several recent studies. Indeed, if you consider only healthy people who exercise regularly, those who sit the most during the rest of the day have larger waists and worse profiles of blood pressure and blood sugar than those who sit less.

And the Men’s Health article:

Perhaps “exercising couch potato” would be more accurate, but Hamilton, a physiologist and professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, would still classify you as sedentary. “People tend to view physical activity on a single continuum,” he says. “On the far side, you have a person who exercises a lot; on the other, a person who doesn’t exercise at all. However, they’re not necessarily polar opposites.”

Hamilton’s take, which is supported by a growing body of research, is that the amount of time you exercise and the amount of time you spend on your butt are completely separate factors for heart-disease risk. New evidence suggests, in fact, that the more hours a day you sit, the greater your likelihood of dying an earlier death regardless of how much you exercise or how lean you are. That’s right: Even a sculpted six-pack can’t protect you from your chair.

But it’s not just your heart that’s at risk from too much sitting; your hips, spine, and shoulders could also suffer. In fact, it’s not a leap to say that a chair-potato lifestyle can ruin you from head to toe.

Make no mistake: “Reguarly exercising is not the same as being active,” says Peter Katzmarzyk, Ph.D., Hamilton’s colleague at Pennington, the nation’s leading obesity research center. Katzmarzyk is referring to the difference between official exercise activity, such as running, biking, or lifting weights, and so-called nonexercise activity, like walking to your car, mowing the lawn, or simply standing. “A person may hit the gym every day, but if he’s sitting a good deal of the rest of the time, he’s probably not leading an overall active life,” says Katzmarzyk.

You might dismiss this as scientific semantics, but energy expenditure statistics support Katzmarzyk’s notion. In a 2007 report, University of Missouri scientists said that people with the highest levels of nonexercise activity (but little to no actual “exercise”) burned significantly more calories a week than those who ran 35 miles a week but accumulated only a moderate amount of nonexercise activity. “It can be as simple as standing more,” Katzmarzyk says.

I’ll let you read the articles and draw your own conclusions. There’s a whole lot to it, and by no means does any of this dismiss the importance of eating right, exercising regularly, or getting a good night’s sleep, but it does make quite a bit of sense that if you sit a lot a) your leg, back, and abdominal muscles do absolutely nothing, b) your lack of movement and need for muscles to stabilize you results in less calories burned, and c) it’s not out of the realm of possibility that there are many other negative psychological/physiological effects that we’re just starting to understand.

Now this is somewhat scary to me because I’m the exact person mentioned in these articles – I exercise regularly, but often after my hour of exercise I’ll spend the rest of the day on my computer. I’ve also had a history of back problems going back to middle school, although the past few years it hasn’t been much of an issue. I’m somewhat saved by the fact that I’m very fidgety and I’m constantly getting up to grab a drink of water, make some tea, eat a snack, change the laundry, use the bathroom, etc etc. It’s rare that I actually sit for longer than 30 minutes at a time. Still, regardless of the number of breaks, many days I spend most of 10+ hours in a chair.

So, about a month ago I decided to try to cut back on my chair time.

The first thing I did was to start rotating between using my chair and an exercise ball. If I have to be sitting, at least the exercise ball requires my legs and core to keep me stabilized and sitting upright. Occasionally I’ve also worked from my knees, although I’ll need to pick up a mat to cushion them if I decide to do that regularly.

The other thing I decided to do was to build a standing desk, something that’s en vogue on Lifehacker, partially due to articles like those mentioned above. I wasn’t looking to spend a lot of money or take up a lot of space, so this took some thought. When I had back injuries in the past and couldn’t sit, I would just put an end table on top of a table and get to work. I went out into the living room and grabbed one, and sure enough it was the perfect height when placed on my desk. That weekend I went out to Target and picked up this table for $14.

Here are some pictures:

Seated

Standing

Since I can’t take advantage of my dual monitors, keyboard, and mouse using the standing desk, I tend to save my programming for while I’m seated. This actually works out great. On my non-warehouse days, I’ll start the day standing. I’ll answer my email and do any other quick daily tasks. If it’s a gym day, I’ll go do my workout next. Then when I get back I’ll rotate between the ball and the chair while I dig in to whatever project I’m working on. On any given day I might spend 1-2 hours standing and another 1-2 hours sitting on the ball.

Overall I’m really glad I’ve worked this into my routine. Every little bit helps, and health aside I enjoy the change of pace when I switch from one set up to another. In the future, I may build a more robust standing desk, or possibly build a desk around a treadmill – I’ve read about people who do this and do a slow walk all day long. I suppose the best solution would be to have my main desk elevated, get an elevated chair, and then be able to rotate back and forth between standing and sitting without having to adjust my computer set up…

Update 5/11/2011 – Check out this infographic via: Medical Billing And Coding

So anyway, now that I’ve got a little more free time, I’ve found that 3 intense productive hours per day is still a sweet spot on my three non-warehouse days (warehouse days can be a little more unpredictable). Again, it doesn’t sound like a lot, but it really is. During that time I don’t really take breaks. I eat beforehand and afterward. I’ve generally already run my errands for the day and/or gone to the gym. I’ve already checked email and done any daily tasks. Later at night, if I have time, I’ll catch up on Twitter and my RSS feeds or write a blog post or try to expand my programming knowledge. But during those 3 hours I’m intensely focused. The night before I’ll plan out exactly what I’ll be working on. I like to make a cup of tea to sip on and crank up the music and get into my zone. It’s hard (impossible) to do this all day long. For 3 hours per day though, I find myself looking forward to it and not dreading work like most people do. Some of that is because of what I’m working on, but some of it is because I’m not wearing myself out by working a crazy amount of hours.

I particularly enjoy sandwiching these “blitzes” with the exact opposite type of thing. Before hand, I might go to the gym, cook breakfast, and read for 30 minutes, which is the total opposite of programming with Eminem blaring. When I’m done, I might make some more food and go for a walk or read some more. The whole thing just leaves me feeling balanced and relaxed, while still being really productive. When I’m in “work24x7 mode” I just can’t unwind even when I try to. The nice thing is that because we’re doing pretty well now, I don’t feel like I have to work all the time like I did in 2006 or 2007.

By structuring things around these short “blitzes” of work, I feel like I’m setting myself up for the kind of balance I want to live with for the long term, the kind of balance I’m lucky enough to be able to dictate because I own my own business.

I am a frequent commenter on Adam’s blog, beyond the blog we’ve become good friends over the last few years and enjoy sharing business stories and other lifestyle/technology concepts we come across.  As the story I’m about to share with you unfolded Adam was the first person I knew I was going to tell and he suggested a guest post for his blog, which leads us to the story.

I was out to dinner with some friends a little over a week ago, two married couples and I.  I won’t say that the two husbands (we’ll call them John and Steve) don’t like each other but they are at odds with each other, in particular with certain topics.  One of these topics is living through search engines, namely Google.  John is a self proclaimed Googleholic he will not do anything, buy anything or go anyplace without Googling it first.  Steve uses Google for researching, for example looking into buying a new cell phone, but doesn’t like it for reviews or let it influence him too much.  He argues, and this is where it gets interesting, that John is no longer capable of thinking for himself, his statements are derived from Google, his opinion is no longer his opinion, it is what he reads from Google.  Additionally, Steve feels that you are depriving yourself of experiencing life through heavy Google usage, a restaurant may have a bad review or two and may be an outstanding place to eat.

This really got me thinking, I am a heavy Google user, in addition to averaging 34.2 Google searches per day(Google tracks this for you, in case you didn’t know) I’m using no less than 21 Google Products on my Google Account Page.  A lot of my searching is because I recently moved over 750 miles from my home town/state and am learning a lot about my new area, Google has made this experience much easier.  I’m not making excuses for my usage but I own two businesses, one of which is a web business and work almost exclusively through my computer/from home, a lot of my searching is for work.  That is not the case for John, he is a blue color worker and that means he’s away from the ability to search for at least 8 hours a day.

The real question is, how much Google searching is too much?  Are we living better quality lives because we don’t need to have an experience to gain the knowledge from others?  This reminds me a book by Barry Schwartz called The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less only with a Google twist.  If we’re not to the point that we are virtually experiencing life, we are approaching it very rapidly – be warned!

Adam here: my thoughts are that this is a REALLY interesting topic. I too have a Google addiction, but I also don’t really want to know everything about everything I’m just about to do.  It’s kind of why I personally don’t like the concept of online dating.  It turns something that is adventurous and curious into a process that’s kind of like buying a car.  At some point you just have to get out there and live.  I also think that, in a way, the wealth of information hinders us from doing things.  In particular, starting a business.  There’s so much info out there that you can get sucked in to thinking you need to do 50 things before you can even consider starting a company, when almost none of that is as important as simply meeting a need that people are willing to pay for.  On a more personal level, I try to use my Googling to my advantage when traveling.  Often times my girlfriend and I will hop in the car and take a day trip to a small town in Massachusetts or Vermont on a whim because we heard it was a cool place, with no more info than the town name to throw into our GPS.  We explore the town and sometimes never need to use the technology available to us.  But by knowing that we have smart phones at our disposal, we don’t have to plan as much.  If we get lost, we use the GPS and/or our phones.  If we can’t find a place to eat, we can Google it.  The same technology that can cripple you can also be used to your advantage, depending on how you approach it.

In general, the past few months have been more stressful than usual.  I’ve constantly been trying to get back into a more balanced routine, but to no avail.  Seemingly though, the rest of the year is shaping up to be pretty good with Mike coming back and the server chaos with LockerPulse behind us.  We’ve got a lot of awesome stuff planned for both LP and DI, but nothing that is pressing enough to have an absolute due date.

Instead of diving into something new, I decided to take today and get my “momentum” back.  *Most* of the time when you run a company, you can control most days with relative predictability. Sure, things always pop up here and there, but not enough to throw your day off track.  Lately though, every day has been thrown off track.  I know that’s not going to be the norm, so as quickly as possible I want to get that feeling of control back.

I had several left over tasks from yesterday to get to.  I ripped through those in the morning, took care of a few other small things that I have been putting off, caught up with all of my emails, and then, late in the afternoon when I could dive back into work, I simply laid out my plans for tomorrow, caught up with my Google Reader, and started writing this post. After this I’m heading out to dinner and don’t plan on working the rest of the night.

Could I have gotten more done today?  Of course.  However, for my long term benefit, sometimes it’s more important to get my positive momentum back and end the day on a good note instead of with my head spinning.   Tomorrow I’ll be excited to dive in to my work, instead of worn out.  Later this week I can really get going on some projects I’ve been wanting to get to for a while now.  All it takes for me is one positive, calm day to regain the momentum.

Update – and 15 minutes after hitting submit on this post, just as I went to close my email, a customer alerted me to a bug on Detailed Image.  Something I probably should just address now.  Sometimes you just can’t win…