Building a comfortable home-office desk

What makes a home office desk comfortable?

A comfortable desk is one that fits your body and your room, not one that looks good in a photo. The chair, the screen, the keyboard and the light all need to work together, and most of the fixes are cheap or free.

You do not need a dedicated room or expensive furniture. A spare-room desk, a corner of the bedroom or even a kitchen table can be set up well if you get the basic positions right. Start with the chair, then the screen, then the light, and only buy something once you know exactly what is missing. The order matters, because each adjustment changes the one after it.

Start with the chair, not the desk

Desk height is usually fixed, but chair height is not, so the chair is where you start. Set it so your forearms are roughly level with the desk when your hands are on the keyboard and your shoulders are relaxed rather than hunched.

If raising the chair means your feet no longer sit flat on the floor, put something under them. A footrest works, and so does a sturdy box or a ream of paper. It looks a little odd and works well. If your chair has no lower-back support, a small cushion or a rolled towel behind your lower back is a reasonable stand-in while you decide whether a new chair is worth it.

• Forearms roughly level with the desk
• Feet flat on the floor or a footrest
• Knees at about hip height
• Lower back supported by the chair or a cushion
• Enough space under the desk to move your legs

Get the screen to the right height and distance

The top of the screen should sit at or just below eye level, roughly an arm's length away. That lets you look slightly down at the middle of the screen without tipping your head forward.

A laptop sitting straight on a desk is the most common home-office mistake, because the screen is far too low and you spend the day looking down. Either raise the laptop on a stand and use a separate keyboard and mouse, or plug in an external monitor at the right height. A stack of hardback books makes a perfectly good riser while you decide. For more on screen position, windows and multiple monitors, our post on glasses and your computer screen setup goes into more detail.

Keyboard, mouse and desk depth

Keep the keyboard close enough that your elbows stay near your sides, and put the mouse on the same level right next to it. Reaching forward for either one all day is tiring for your shoulders and arms.

Desk depth matters more than people expect. A shallow desk forces the screen too close, while a deep one lets you set the monitor back to arm's length with room for a keyboard in front. If your desk is shallow, a monitor arm that clamps to the back edge frees up space and lets you push the screen further away. Keep the things you use every hour, such as a notebook, your phone and a drink, within easy reach so you are not twisting to grab them.

Light the room properly

A screen glowing in an otherwise dim room is one of the most common home-office comfort mistakes. Add a lamp so the room has its own light and the screen is not the brightest thing in view.

Aim the lamp at a wall or the ceiling rather than at you or the screen. A lamp shining towards your face lands on your glasses as a reflection, and one shining at the screen washes out the display. A desk lamp with an adjustable arm is useful for paperwork, as long as you angle it to light the page from the side. In winter, when it gets dark mid-afternoon, switch the lamp on earlier than you think you need to.

Choosing where the desk goes

Put the desk side-on to the window if you can. Facing a window puts a bright field behind your screen, and backing onto one puts the window's reflection on the screen and your lenses.

Think about the rest of the room too. A desk wedged into a bedroom corner is fine, but try to face into the room rather than a wall a few inches from your nose, so you have somewhere further away to look during breaks. Keep cables tidy and off the floor where you walk, and if you work at the kitchen table, pack the laptop away at the end of the day so the space goes back to being a kitchen.

Habits that make the setup work

The best desk in the world still needs you to leave it sometimes. Stand up between tasks, take a proper lunch away from the screen and walk around the room during phone calls.

Many people use the 20-20-20 habit to add regular pauses: every twenty minutes, look at something about twenty feet away for twenty seconds. If you have a standing desk, the benefit is in switching between sitting and standing rather than standing all day. For the bigger picture on working life around screens, read our guide to screens, work and modern digital life.

• Stand up at least once an hour
• Take lunch away from the desk
• Walk around during phone calls
• Use the 20-20-20 habit for regular look-aways
• Close the laptop at a set time each day

The finishing layer: glasses for your desk

With the chair, screen and light sorted, glasses are the last small piece. A light frame with clear lenses and an anti-glare coating deals with any reflections left over from lamps, windows and a glossy screen.

For a home office, the Crystal Clear frame at £10.99 is subtle on video calls, and the Midnight Square at £9.99 is a sharp matte black square. If you need a little magnification for documents, the Boardroom readers at £14.99 cover the page and the screen. Our guide to the best blue light glasses for working from home compares more options.

Not sure what suits you? Home Try-On sends up to four frames to try at your own desk, free for seven days.

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