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Spoiler Alert: Bean bag chairs do not count as ergonomically correct. (Source)
You're young, and I love that about you. In the same way that your young brain is all young, limber, and stretchy, so is all that muscle and bone packed around it. Unfortunately, all that stretchiness won't last forever. Today, we're on a mission to avoid those long-term snaps, crackles, and pops that come from studying or working in less-than-ideal environments.
It may seem like no big whoop, but ergonomics, or the study of designing things so that they're comfy and safe, is a huge deal. In fact, ergonomics is such a big deal at work that many companies have people whose sole job is to walk around and measure how well employees' chairs fit them, or if their computer monitors are too close or far away. Today, you'll assess the ergonomics of your own workspace. Yes, it's a little weird, but you'll thank me later.
Once you've got your ergonomics on, we'll talk about making your study space comfortable and distraction-free. Surprise, surprise—if you actually want to spend time in your study space, you'll end up studying more (and better). If it's more depressing than the evening news, you're going to be tempted to just play Xbox instead.
So in this lesson, we're going to talk about ways to make study space an awesome space. Just because serious work will be done there doesn't mean that it has to be seriously painful to look at! By the end of this lesson, you'll be super-excited about how fantastically functional and fabulous your study space can be.
READING: LIKE ECONOMICS, BUT NOT
When most people think of ergonomics, they tend to think of orthopedic shoes or those weird track ball mice. Sure, these items can help create ergonomic environments, but that's not all there is to ergonomics.
The whole point of ergonomics is actually to prevent us from injuring ourselves while doing some action repeatedly. Since we're in school and this class is about study skills, we can safely assume that we'll be doing a lot of studying, and that normally means a lot of sitting at a desk on a computer.
Having the wrong desk height, posture, or computer height causes stiff necks and backs, sore wrists, or any number of other annoying aches and pains. If you're straining to look at a computer screen that's five feet away, it's not very good for your eyeballs. Or if your screen is three inches away from your eyes, they'll definitely be angry at you in an hour. If your arms can't spread out well enough to type on your keyboard, you're going to be sneaking off to the kitchen for a snack every five minutes. If you're distracted by shooting pains or legs that keep falling asleep, you're definitely not getting any studying out of the way. That's lame.
Your study set-up matters.
So not only do I want you to be comfortable when you're studying, but I'm all about minimizing study time around here by making it ultra-efficient, and the best way to do that is to study in an ergonomically-friendly environment.
So without further ado, read all about the specifics of setting up an ergonomic study space in this article by Ergonomics Australia and take a gander at your current study space when you're done. How does it stack up?
Making a Study Zone
Making a Study Zone
The Study Zone sounds like the lamest reality TV show ever ("spin the wheel and earn a scarf to keep you company in the freezing cold library!"), but I was trying to come up with a better name than "the place where you do most of your homework." The basic idea here is that you're going to have a much easier time doing all your work if you have a comfy (but not too comfy), organized space to work in.
Here are some basic guidelines for making a good space for homework:
Separate work and play. If your homework desk is also the home of three different gaming consoles, your My Little Pony collection, and all your sketching supplies, it may be a little harder to focus.
Give school its own space. It helps to have designated spaces or shelves for all your school stuff, rather than dragging it around in a backpack until it all morphs into a giant ball of crumpled notes and leftover yogurt containers.
Light is actually important. Seriously. It is.
Even if you're working in a closet with no windows and a cardboard box for a desk, you need to find a space that's free of distractions. Lots of students get a little defensive about this one—like, hey, we can check Instagram and TikTok about our dinner and write a report on Monet and watch reruns of The Big Bang Theory all at the same time, and who are you to say we can't? Well, you totally can, but that report on Monet is going to be pretty mediocre and take a super, super long time to write.
Don't get me wrong; I love some social media. It's great for staying up to date on all the latest in cat videos and hashtag trends, but it can also be a major distraction. Log out of all social media outlets and turn off that cell phone (or leave it in another room). Messages and texts can—and should—wait. Unless you're working on a group project, this study space should only include you, your study materials, and your brain. Do yourself a favor and minimize the buzzes, beeps, and canned laughter around your study space. Sit down, focus, and get the thing over with so you can get back to toning your abs while watching The Simpsons.
And don't forget the look of things! Nothing is less exciting than a desk with only depressing piles of work on top of it. Snazzify that space with whatever gives you the fighting spirit, academically speaking. Just like Rocky, you need your theme song. Successories posters, a vision board of your dream job/college, or a chalk rendering of the model airplane you plan to build once the work is done—all of those work well here. If it gives you the "Eye of the Tiger," throw it up there. Also, a ficus wouldn't hurt.
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