Revisiting the treadmill desk

I am very fond of my home-built treadmill desk, but basically never use it any more. Working at home with a toddler running around is hard enough. Working at home with a toddler attempting to run on the treadmill with me is impossible.

Now that I have had one for a while, and before I get rid of it, a few thoughts on the desirability of treadmill desks.

Pluses: I really could stand and work longer than I can sit without taking a break, and it is surely better for me to stand than to sit most of the time. When I used it for actually walking, rather than just standing, the health benefits surely increased and I found it easy to walk very slowly for hours at a time. Another, somewhat off topic, benefit is that when one needs to run one's toddler and the weather outside is Denmark, toddlers can easily be convinced to run on a treadmill for long enough to get some energy out. (Always hold the toddler's hand while she is on the treadmill so that you can prevent falls.) Before I started biking to campus, there were times when this was a useful tactic before my bedtime also.

Minuses: Achieving a deep focus on a topic is not as easy when walking on a treadmill (at least my cheep treadmill) as when sitting or even walking around. Some part of my mind always has to monitor my position on the treadmill so I don't slide off the back, and the slight bouncing makes both typing a reading a bit slower. I occasionally play a game of chess against the computer in the evening, and I can beat it at a much harder setting if I turn the treadmill off. Editing manuscripts, I inevitably end up turning the treadmill off when I get a point I really need to focus on. As a result, I rarely ended up walking, rather than standing, when doing any task that required speed or more than half a mind.

Walking desk

I'm one of those people who have trouble sitting still and working for any great period of time. I frequently find excuses to get up and walk to the other side of the building to talk to someone or check on something. I've occasionally seen articles like this one on NPR touting the health and productivity benefits of treadmill desks.

When I was in grad school I read such an article, then saw a treadmill for sale in a thrift store near campus. I stopped by the office of the acting director of the museum where my office was and asked if I could install myself a treadmill desk. She looked confused and busy but said yes. The next day maybe half an hour after I had moved the mill in, as I was just figuring out how to build a desk over it, she apologetically called me to her office and asked me to remove it from the museum. My wife kindly let me keep the machine in our tiny tiny Berkeley studio apartment until we sold it to a friend.

Now that I have a real job and we have a decent sized apartment, we are reorganizing that apartment to fit a baby and all the stuff that goes with modern babyhood. And it just so happens that I have both another used treadmill and a broken desk. Below are pictures of the result. It is not the world's prettiest construction (built while recovering from a tooth extraction using only materials I had in the room and without taking any measurements) but now I can walk and type at the same time. It will take a little bit of getting used to typing while rocking from foot to foot, but I think I am going to like this, and maybe it will help me remember to use the treadmill.

Here is my wife's shot of me typing this post:


And here's a view from the treadmill. We are in the tallest building in the state, so I have a nice view of Rostock from my desk.

List of materials:
Treadmill from thrift store
Broken desk
Various screws and bolts I had around the house
An old curtain rod

Total cost €90 spent last year