 We often view our desk as our command center, our digital battleship, our inter-dimensional portal to a world without suffering. We oftentimes think that we need to stay connected all the time, but the reality is that we are gradually sort of declining into doing more activities with our desk that might not be suited for this particular location. And I want to outline some things I stopped doing at my desk as an experiment first, trying to regain my focus, and it also kind of helps saw my back. And the number one thing is eating. And I know that this might sound repugnant, but I used to eat on my desk thinking about saving some time while multitasking to speed up my day to day tasks. And there are quite some obvious reasons why this might not be the best thing to do. I mean, for starters, it's not hygienically pleasing, greasy fingers everywhere, sticky keyboard, and the constant fear that you might spill that bowl of soup on your new mouse. And then you end up kind of stuck in between worlds. You have this thing going on where you are not officially working, but you are technically not procrastinating either, right? So what you're doing is you're actually trying to sort of trick your brain into believing that you are actually doing the work. But always remember work works best with breaks. This is why people are using Pomodoro timers and other methods to sit back and decompress. And one other thing I'm still learning to stop keep doing at my desk is surfing the web mindlessly. And if you have a computer on your desk, that's quite a seductive place to be. And not only because you're all nice and cozy in your chair, but also because you are facing the actual internet, you're facing the endless opportunities of the web. And again, it's pretty seductive to be connected all the time. And even though you might have evolved out of the social media rabbit hole telling yourself that you are not doom scrolling on Facebook or Instagram anymore, and you are above that type of thing, well, doom scrolling through prestigious online research and mind blowing articles and blogs can still be labeled as procrastination. And sometimes for myself, at least, this can place me in some sort of an anxiety inducing state. This is sort of like the same thing, you are replacing social media with some other thing that constantly brings you more and more information on your feed. I myself noticed this when I first discovered Quora. And for those who don't know, Quora is a question and answer website where questions are asked, answered, followed, and edited by internet users, either factually or in a form of opinion. And when I first discovered this a few years back, I was quite mesmerized. And they even have an app for this one. And everything is essentially at my fingertips. The thought that I can ask any question I want and that I will get replies from real users really opened the gates for me. I remember waking up in the morning and checking my account for notifications just so that I can see what answers I have received during the night. And quite the same thing is happening for social media users as well, right? You are waking up in the morning and you're checking your Facebook or Instagram account. And I don't know what apps are kids using today, I suppose TikTok or something along those lines. And I suppose that one can really screw your brain up. But let's let's let's let's continue. And again, even though this might not seem that little as doomscrolling through social media without learning anything new, this was also quite seductive as the app was built on the same principles. And the notification badge was still there. And this applies to all sorts of websites in the online world as well. And again, I'm still sometimes guilty of falling in this rabbit hole telling myself that I'm doing this for research purposes, even though oftentimes I end up doing nothing with that particular information. And one other thing I stopped doing at my desk is socializing not only from my phone, but also from my computer. Oftentimes it's quite easy to receive a quick message on your phone and then swiftly move the conversation into the browser. And before you know it, you end up spending quite a lot of time in conversation when your initial one was to do some work. And of course you can use some apps to block your social media accounts and stuff. But let's face it, if you really want to chat, you will cancel all of those and do your thing. But one thing you can do is to reframe your desk space as the place used to do work only. And if you want to get social, you can either go outside or you know, move away from your desk and just like go and play with the dog while texting or whatever. Or take your apps with you to another place and do the chatting there. It's about reframing how you view that particular location and also assigning a specific purpose to it. And one other thing I stopped doing at my desk is actually sitting. And I know that there are quite a few buzzwords out there saying that sitting is the new smoking. But you know, take it, take it with a grain of salt. And what I did to avoid sitting at my desk while keep working at my desk is invested in a standing desk. And it's not the electricity powered fancy one and I'm using a crank to move it up and down. It takes up about 30 seconds to do it and I view it as a mindfulness practice. A quick cool moment to do some breath work while I'm switching positions. Yeah, that's right. I know that standing desks are trending nowadays and that there's research out there outlining the pros and the cons. But again, take it with a grain of salt. But it's quite physically obvious to me that sitting on my bottle often results in buggy physical outcomes such as back pain, muscular soreness and general fatigue. And my process is quite simple. Let's say I work for maybe 45 minutes doing like a Pomodoro session while sitting and then I'll switch things up. I'll go and, you know, take a small break, get a glass of water and then I'll switch to standing mode once again. I will use that break to do a quick stretch, get a glass of water again and adjust my desk while also doing some breath work once again. And you should not spend your time sitting all day and you should not spend your time standing all day. It's all about balance. And another thing I stopped doing at my desk is deep thinking. And the problem with deep thinking is that movies and pop culture sort of like injected this cliche in our brain where we see great people sitting at their desks smoking a pipe and contemplating their next steps. And we often rely on the streetlight effect, which is an observational cognitive bias where people tend to gather information from where it's easiest to look nowadays, TV, social media, Netflix and the first pages of Google. So it comes in handy based on our cultural feedback loops to view thinking as something productive, something which can only be done inside, surrounded by books and sketches and notebooks. But when deep thinking actually happens is when you're not connected all the time. It's when you have the empty time to process all the information you essentially absorbed along the way. And quite a lot of great people in history are heavily known for taking long walks to relax, decompress and think. And deep thinking is sort of like meditation, where you are descending into your inner place, arguing against what input you have accumulated during your day to day activity. And again, sometimes I believe it's quite obvious why a simple act such as walking can act as a support structure for your deep thinking process. And the benefits of a daily walk are quite astonishing, especially when you see the full list. And I'm reading out loud quite a few of them, but a daily walk actually eases joint pain, lowers blood sugar levels, improves your circulation and your mood and much more. And I must admit that walking is quite like the most underrated type of exercise. And I agree that there might be more things I need to stop doing at my desk, but you know I just started exploring this stuff. And in the end it's about self-awareness and trying to better understand yourself, observe yourself and trying to gradually tweak your actions so that you can improve your outcomes.