When I started this series of articles, I’d bet you thought I would begin by telling you to loose weight and join a gym. That’s not necessarily the best place to start in your quest for improved fitness and a better lifestyle.
It is better to start by making your work life easier, less stressful, and less time consuming. I started that process by getting rid of the office and the employees. Working from a home office reduced costs and travel time, while allowing me to be more productive. This had a major beneficial impact on my fitness and lifestyle. But that change has created its own challenges as my work became more dependent upon computers and telecommunication technology.
Our hands are the fundamental to our success as a species. They support our creativity. They bring to life what our minds imagine. My dangerous job is hell on the hands and forearms. Writing and typing put an enormous repetitive strain on the hands. I tried limiting how much I wrote and typed, but my efforts were inconsistent with making a living. My solution to this problem relies on old technology, mature technology, and a relatively unused technology.
First, handwritten notes are important in my field. When writing, the hand often endures G forces that would make a fighter pilot pass out. Ballpoint pens are tiring and painful to use because one must press too hard to write. My old-technology solution is the fountain pen.
A good fountain pen glides over the page effortlessly and it made my handwriting legible again as a result. After much experimentation, I settled on the Lamy 2000 pen. It’s not too expensive, it holds a lot of ink, and it is very reliable. The medium nib is great for writing fast or for shorthand and the extra-fine nib is wonderful for making fine notes or getting a lot onto a page.
My mature-technology solution is dictation. This cuts down on typing. I send the dictation file to the dicta-typist and get back a Word file to edit.
The relatively unused technology solution is the Dvorak keyboard. I have no idea why we still use the QWERTY key layout which became obsolete since the 30′s.
I would estimate that you move your fingers 10 times less when using the Dvorak keyboard. Over a lifetime that represents an enormous saving in wear and tear on the hands and forearms, especially the left hand which is severely overworked by the QWERTY keyboard. To fully understand the advantages of the Dvorak keyboard take the time to watch the entire video clip taken from a 1930′s film.
To change the keyboard to the Dvorak layout you will need to pry off the keys of your existing keyboard and move them to the correct Dvorak placement. Next go to the Control Panel and tell XP or Vista to accept the input from a Dvorak keyboard.
These changes did not occur overnight. I made these changes over a 2 year period. Changes like these require patience and persistence. One day you will realise how significant the changes are and how much easier they make your work day.
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