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February 10, 2015

Going Mobile: Is the “Work Desk” Dead?

Submitted by Kelly Glass

The 1996 film "Big Night" revealed the joys of a good joke, a hot plate of food and warm company, as well as the fact that even the Italian restaurant is a business.

Ian Holm’s character, the ruthless restauranteur Pascal, put his ideas of work more bluntly. “I am a business man,” he said. “I am anything I need to be at any time.”

Most of us learned our formative lessons about hard work firmly seated facing forward in grade school. The old saying “put your head down and work” meant being installed behind a desk. And so the desk still remains a major symbol of “work” in the 21st Century. But that notion is changing.

A Tablet at a Coffee Shop Suggests Your Desk is Where You Are

In 2013, Fast Company ran a popular feature about the benefits of breaking away from your desk to work at least one day a week from a coffee shop. Their advice goes for both office dwellers and people who don’t even drink coffee. Likewise, Forbes — the reasonably conservative magazine that rates businesses and covers economic trends — heralded the idea of the un-cubicle in its post about the Top 100 Companies for working at home.

For distributors of specialty advertising that serve the small and medium sized business (SMB) market, being dynamic and mobile is more important in 2015 than ever before.

Your desk is where you are.

The truth is that, as an entrepreneur, some of the best work you do comes not from your desk but from your everyday efforts of talking to customers and doing the things that build relationships and business. These efforts require moving around, customer visits and maybe even hours out of the office.

On the same note, technology review site Treehugger recently noted that your future office is in your pants. Specifically, with the rise of smart phone technology and apps that really do let you get work done without a desktop computer or laptop, the need for fixed workspace may be fading with flip phone and the BlackBerry.

Better yet, many of the SMBs you serve –businesses which demand the best promotional products complete with high-quality vector artwork and embroidery digitizing —probably don’t dwell behind desks either.

Retails shops, sports and recreational organizations, services firms and even Italian restaurants are booming with America’s economic rebound. To reach them and get their business on a consistent basis means being anywhere you need to be at any time.

If you must work at your desk, sit right.

There are times however that put you inevitable at your desk or seated upright at a table for a few hours. How you work and how you sit in your chair have a lot to do with how you feel afterward.

According to the folks at Mind Body Green, there is definitely a right and wrong way to sit and work. The key is first and foremost not to do things that wreck your body.

Some of the things ergonomics and productivity experts suggest you do while sitting in a chair are to sit up straight (no slouching), position your feet on the floor and make sure your work keeps your head level with your spine and not hunched over. Additionally it is important to take breaks. If you have six hours of work to do, break it up and get out of your seat rather than work six hours straight through.

Humans weren’t exactly designed to sit at a desk or spend hours a day looking at tiny illuminated screens. But with both the desk and electronics as essential parts of work in the present day, just a little care in planning your day and how you work can lead to a more efficient and more effective way of life.

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