Treadmill Desk Setup

For quite a few months now, I’ve been playing around with a treadmill desk. I have a pretty large hydraulic desk from Geek Desk that I have partitioned into 2 workstations:

What is This?
On the left is my coding/recording station, and on the right is my learning/gaming station. When I’m simply consuming content, I can easily work on my treadmill station. For $200, I bought a Confidence Power Plus treadmill that I mostly disassembled and slid under the desk. I have a master power switch I can trigger with my foot, and speed controls I can use from the desktop. The treadmill shuts itself off after 30 minutes of use which allows for a very lo-fi pomodoro system. When I first started on the treadmill station, which has no guard rails mind you, I had to go extremely slow and couldn’t focus much on walking or consuming. Give it a bit though and the treadmill part falls right into muscle memory.

These Reboots Were Made For Walking
Since I know I will be tread’ing at some point in the day - and I know it will kill itself every 30 minutes - I’ve been using tools like Pocket and stuff to help me avoid distractions on my ~creation station~ because I know I can just punt it right over to the treadmill box and consume a lot of content distraction free. I am finally reaching a point where I can read at 2.8 mph, and watch screencasts at 4 mph. This makes me a huge fan of screencasts… They are better for me.

tail -m thedragon
Recently, I started adding games to the mix. If you are expecting to be able to play twitch games… Just stop that thought now. Any game that relies on twitch or precision is a no go. I’m a huge fan of Skyrim and rpg’s in general, but my current schedule/commits don’t really allow me much indulgence in those time sinks. However, the need for a game that doesn’t require heavy precision + the 30 minute cutoff on my treadmill allows an incredible pairing to occur.

Am I healthier because of my treadmill setup? Maybe. Am I happier, more productive and having more fun? You bet!