You can measure my productivity by how slouched I am.
Sitting up straight at my desk, chair locked, perfect posture? I’m doing nothing, maybe looking through System Preferences to change the system highlight color.
Sliding down in my chair like jelly, with my shoulders where my butt should be and my head resting on the lumbar support? I’m building the next iPhone and it’ll be done by 2 AM.
Congrats on the app.
I'm seeing that "great-ai-unlock" is happening. I see in last month a lot of new software being codeveloped with claude/codex/gemini/you-name it.
Before, it was too costly to do sth like the Posture app: here, you would have to know Swift and apple apis to write such tool. Would you be C# (very good) programmer with free weekend, and an idea: no cookie for ya.
These days, due to "great-ai-unlock" your skills can be easily transferred and used to cross platforms boundary and code such useful app in a weekend or so.
Jevons paradox is indeed working (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox).
Thanks rdslw. I mentioned something similar on my blog post about this app here: https://tomjohnell.com/posturr-a-macos-app-that-blurs-your-s...
I love coming up with fun ideas and only having to worry about the fun part - not the toil. I would never have made this app without llm support.
Neat app. Any tips on how you used Claude Code to develop this?
My first prompt was:
"Help me develop a MacOS app that blurs my screen the closer my mouse is to the top of the monitor"
That was my PoC to see if there's APIs Claude could find that would make this easy to do. Once I proved that worked, I asked it to instead help me devise a way to adjust that blur based on my posture. It suggested the vision framework and measuring head height.
Just kept iterating, one step at a time. Any toil I experienced, I asked it to remove or automate.
This is going to sound very basic, but did you do it in a blank repo or did you use the cloned integration in Xcode, or a third thing I'm not thinking of?
Maybe this is a naive take, but I don't really think LLMs have done that much to change the actual situation around ability/outcomes. If you are actually a very good C# programmer, knowing Swift and searching some Apple documentation seems very reasonable.
It might help "unstick" you if you aren't super confident, but it doesn't seem to me like it's actually leveling up mediocre programmers to "very good" ones, in familiar or unfamiliar domains.
> I don't really think LLMs have done that much to change the actual situation around ability/outcomes
from my own experiences and many others I have seen on this site and elsewhere, I'm not sure how anyone could conclude this.
> it doesn't seem to me like it's actually leveling up mediocre programmers to "very good" ones
Oh well then if this is your metric then maybe your take is correct, but not relevant? From the top level comment I thought we were talking about the bar being lowered for building something thanks to AI and you don't need to become any better at being a programmer to do so.
I don't care how good of a programmer you are, if you don't know Apple stuff (Swift, Xcode, all the random iOS/Mac app BS) you aren't making an Apple app in a weekend. Learning things is easy but still takes time, and proficiency is only earned by trying and failing a number of times — unless you're an LLM, in which case you're already proficient in everything.
I don't see how the Jevons paradox would apply here. Code being cheaper and faster to produce obviously causes the demand for apps such as this one to grow. That's just supply and demand.
An example of where I think the paradox would apply might be one where LLMs made software engineers more efficient yet the demand for SWEs would grow.
What a stupid thing to call a paradox. When infrastructure is better, you'd expect it to be used more.
It's because they're misusing the term. Jevons' paradox doesn't apply to the simple idea that "cheaper code leads to more demand for code", that's just the concept of price curves.
Instead, Jevons' paradox refers to a counterintuitive rebound effect: AI tools make engineers more productive, which you'd expect to reduce the marginal demand for additional engineers (since the same output requires fewer people). In reality, this efficiency lowers the effective cost of software development, sparking even greater overall demand for new features and projects, which ultimately increases total spending on engineering talent.
I'm not sure how you can use a laptop with good posture. An external monitor at the right height seems like a necessity.
I'm also optimistic about monitors in the form of glasses- even less effort needed to set yourself up for perfect posture. But the sweet spot problem is still very much a thing from what I've seen- can't wait until it's normal for them to have eye tracking, foveated rendering and streaming, and be wireless.
Yeah, most of my computer use is with a properly adjusted desk setup with external monitors and while it doesn’t bother me to use a laptop to jot down some notes or for a short study session, if I try to do “real” work at all I quickly become uncomfortable. A cheap folding laptop stand (which elevates the laptop enough that the middle of its screen is eye level) and wireless KB+mouse dramatically improves comfort (and productivity) but the tradeoff is that you need a table or other sizable, stable flat surface.
The exception is if there happens to be a reclined-position chair (IKEA POÄNG or similar) around; this gives back support and reduces neck craning enough to make longer sessions more viable, but it’s far from a given that this kind of seating will be available.
If you have interesting enough work, nothing else matters. I have written big complex systems while car pooling on a laptop in the passenger seat.
The reason for this app is not productivity but for posture.
When working at a desk I put my 16-inch MacBook Pro on a stand and use an external keyboard and trackpad.
I don't like adapting my monitor layout when moving between working environments.
Instead of an extra monitor, I have an iPad Pro on a stand.
Usb type c port can be flickering sometimes when the macbook/laptop is elevated.
My dog could, but a person with adult proportions probably can't. For long-term use, a stand+KB is the only solution I know of
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/86285180/the-roost-savi...
It's too bad that nobody on the Surface team has managed to crack this! I'd be much more interested in one if they had.
I use the Nexstand K2 (well, the Chinese knockoff I got for $5), and I bent some coat hangers to attach to the top of the stand and tilt the laptop forward. I’m a tall guy, and the top of the screen is even with my eyes. Bonus is that with an X1 Carbon, the Lenovo M14 or M14d fits perfectly over the top of the keyboard.
The whole setup fits into a drawstring gym bag.
Laptop work is clearly not OSHA-compliant. I’m in France so it’s probably regulated a little bit more, but having a screen at eye height and a keyboard slightly under elbow height is the first line on the security analysis document (le DUERP), at least for tertiary workers. And far above “Floor must be non-slippery” and “The right to disconnect after 6pm”.
Your last sentence is something in quotes that just shows up as "The right to ***** *** **". Doesn't look like anything to me.
My Apple Vision Pro has all that, and it’s perfect for posture when using a MacBook.
Yeah- this and the upcoming steam frame seem like the best options today.
There's something very attractive for me personally about the sunglasses form factor.
Safer in public, draws less attention, more portable, less headset fatigue, etc.
But obviously trading quality and features.
Also AVP is like $3k, steam frame will probably be $800+, xreal are like half that
> But obviously trading quality and features.
For me it’s like settling for a CRT after trying a 4k TV in terms of visuals, but with the form factors reversed.
Except the form factors are swapped, but yes.
Isn’t the Vision Pro rather front loaded in terms of its weight distribution? Seems like you might just be trading one ergonomic problem for another.
It’s not really, with the new dual band which changes the weight distribution. If you lean back a lot it’s obviously going to rest on your face then, but that’s a good way to avoid bad posture too.
Still, it’s not for everyone. I use it with my AirPods Max comfortably, I have a sturdy neck. I don’t think my wife could pull it off.
Do you wonder about the wifi impact so close to your head?
I am using it 10 minutes and I already hate it since it's too good.
I guess it's technically cool, but one should be aware that there is no such thing as "good posture" or no accepted definition that lends itself to good science. slouching isnt bad, remaining in the same posture for a long time is, or at least it can lead to discomfort. people that sit up straight all the time still get back pain. i slouch all the time and i don't. The popular attachment to specific configurationa of your joints that look aeathetically acceptable os orthorexia, not science.
As my doctor used to say: the best posture is the next one.
Just make sure you stretch several times throughout the day. Especially if you're an anxious person.
Otherwise when you reach your mid-40s, you may find that you'll have to spend years painfully breaking up a lot of adhesions.
Adhesions are not really a thing as far as i know. Biggest priority is strength and cardiovascular training and maintaining a good body composition and stress level. Then I'd think about stretching.
Given I can be 2 inches taller if I stand up perfect. That's the one I want.
How to achieve it? Not sure. Years of physical therapy and I know the position, but:
>I can't remember to do it.
>I feel my body is tight and pulls me back, so I'm constantly fighting it.
>It hurts. Both tiring, and I feel pains in other parts of my back
I spend most of my time at work on a medicine ball switching between switching, kneeling and standing. At home I switch between reclined, semi-reclined, upright and standing. I think its been working great.
Another thing to note: slouching and back pain tend to have more to do with back strength than people realize.
I have suffered back discomfort and pain in periods I haven’t gone to the gym for long enough to lose back muscle.
Does it? I think strength may be related to pain if you're very weak, and statistically there are big confounders (i.e. people who are weak also have other conditions that exacerbate pain experience). But past a certain point I don't think the evidence suggests that strength itself is protective. Otherwise, competitive lifters would never experience back pain for instance, but they still do. Pain is multifactorial, and strength is not the only determinant by far.
I’ve had chronic back problems due to computer use and back posture for 20+ years. This past year I bought an adjustable height desk and an Aeron chair to try and help, but I still slouch constantly without realizing it.
I cloned this a few hours ago and started using it and it’s amazing how effective the blur is! And it’s frustrating to learn how quickly I start slouching the second I’m not paying attention.
I’ll echo what I’ve seen others saying about how cool it is to see something come about due to LLM coding that likely wouldn’t have otherwise. Glad to see you actively working on it, and I’ll be using it every day!
P.S. I’ve been an iOS and Mac dev writing Obj-C and then Swift for 16 years now, so if you run into any issues that Claude isn’t sorting out feel free to reach out to me, you can find my contact via my GitHub which is in my profile (same username as hear). Also as I’ll be using this regularly, if I come up with any improvements I’ll be sure to open a PR!
Quite a while back, a former student of mine built Nekoze :D
https://nekoze.app Nekoze warns you when you are hunched over.
Years back, we did a couple of whimsical prototypes along those lines (using J!NS MEME, smart glasses): https://youtu.be/LXIY2g-twOA
Anyone else with progressive lenses just think "I already have this"?
I'm due for new glasses, so any laptop use is now a careful equilibrium between "text is burry" and "text is too small".
Yes, absolutely. One of the first things I noticed when I changed from two pairs of glasses to progressive lenses. The other thing was that, because I don't have to switch glasses to look away from the screen, I remember to focus on a distant object every so often.
Sounds like a good idea but “good posture” meaning being upright is just such an outdated and incorrect thing. Be comfortable, relax in your chairs, it’s fine.
A good video on this: https://youtu.be/n7h8H4nGeMw
Does anyone ever reach a high level of productivity with correct posture? I can't.
Sure, but getting the right environment is a prerequisite. In my case it’s a Herman Miller Embody chair [1] that stops me getting into a bad position (it’s not impossible, it just encourages good posture).
[1] https://www.hermanmiller.com/en_gb/products/seating/office-c...
Totally a tangent here but it amazes me how a company as big as Herman Miller could screw a product page up so much by not even having a picture of the damn product.
Lol, I see the image fine but if I click the red "Buy Now" button, I get a 404.
Fortunately, I type this, sitting in my wonderful 15 year old Embody chair so I don't actually need to buy now. Everyone is different and I never raved much about Aerons but the Embody has been very good to me, whether my posture is textbook "good" or "badly" slouched and reclined ... it supports and makes me want to sit and work. :-)
It's there, you just have to slouch to see it.
It's the first thing on the page. Your browser is doing something funky.
Was adguard dns. Apparently their asset delivery method is flagged on a ton of adblocker lists.
Something might be wrong with your client (ad-blocker, NoScript maybe?) because there a ton of pictures on that page.
Ha, yep you're right. How bizarre, wasn't a browser ad block, it was adguard dns blocking a ton of tracking scripts needed to show the images.
I had the same problem.
Word of warning: the Embody chair does not have front-to-back adjustments for the armrests. They will be pretty useless unless you like having your keyboard close to the edge of your desk.
I ditched all my HM chairs for a standard wooden chair. They just never felt right (maybe the non-forward-adjustable armrests had something to do with it), but boy are they good at selling you an expensive fantasy.
Hell, my bed is on the floor, and my sofa is now also a pillow on the floor.
I was the same for decades until I moved somewhere with black widows.
The embodiment of overpriced and mediocre
Luckily there is no such thing as "correct posture".
if im not sitting on my right foot with left knee under my chin my thinking takes a hit, but i also have to constantly switch how im sitting so i dont get annoyed. its hard not to slouch/melt into whatever im sitting on and i think the only way to offset all that is the gym.
I think the idea is wonderful, but a not-audited application that uses things like the camera is a “no go” for me.
Get it notorized and ask for some money! I will gladly pay it (and I hope others will do it as well).
Awesome concept: ergonomics and/or posture monitoring is a market opportunity for heavy users.
Notarization is mostly a glorified malware scan. There's no Apple engineer auditing what's being sent for notarization. Even clever malware can evade notarization scans and be distributed as a notarized binary, it has happened in the past [0]
There's no better way for auditing such an app than having the code easily available and looking through it, and compiling it yourself. Which is already the case here.
[0] https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/new-macsync-macos-stealer-...
Your link says that Apple revoked the certificate used to sign the malware by the time the story was published.
After a different company detected it, figured out what it did, and reported it to Apple. The app was notarized on November 17, screenshots in the researchers' post are from December 16. That's a month of fully notarized distribution.
It's literally a single .swift file. Ask your LLM to audit it.
then I need to get someone to audit the LLM, which is considerably more difficult
Do you expect this programmer is in cahoots with Anthropic?
The opposite, actually: that the code tricks the LLM.
While I disagree with you, thank you for sharing your decision-making process: you're probably not the only one who thinks this way.
In general, would you pay for a notorised build of free software, if you had use for that software, even if an un-notorised build or the source code were available?
I seriously doubt that he actually would. And in that unlikely event he'd be in a miniscule minority. Not a good open source monetisation strategy.
Posturr is now notarized!
Are you serious? It's open source. And there's less than 1000 lines total. Get Codex or Claude to review it if you're paranoid.
The thing is that how do you know at the end of the day that the compiled binary hasn't been tampered with "extra code" besides what's in the repo?
I don't even think notarization gets rid of this problem neither, so the best you can do for this is compile it yourself. Maybe I'm wrong!
Compiling it yourself is the best/only thing you can do if you really want to know what code went into a binary.
What prevents you from compiling it if it is open-source?
That's what I do with every project delivered as docker image. I rebuild the app and the image.
Go easy on the guy. Mac users are so used to overpaying for trivial functionality.
Once launched, Posturr runs in the background and displays a brief "Claude Mode Active" notification.
I haven’t checked the code yet, but what does the “Claude Mode” mean? Is it a poor naming choice? It implies that the local app is somehow connected to Claude (?)
Hi - this is the author. I can explain that, ha!
Right now I'm using a vision library to detect head height which was good enough. I went down a tangent where I hooked it up to my Claude Code instance to take a screen shot and have Claude Code assess how bad my slouch was. Claude would watch a folder for screen shots, read it in, and if it detected bad posture, write to a file the program was watching to adjust blur.
I did this weird work-around so I could use my Claude Code subscription as opposed to the API.
Anyways, it was too slow and Claude was a bad judge of slouchiness. Head height works well enough!
I'll clean this up.
Cool, thanks for the clarification. Indeed it's a good and practical idea for a small app. As other comments have said, (some) people might happily pay for this app.
I luckily won't need such feedback loop anymore, had some mild lower back pain show up over 10 years ago and bought a chair without a backrest that, after 3-4 weeks of struggling, trained me to sit up straight. Now I have some random cheap office chair with a backrest, but I rarely lean back to it. Funnily, I was going to give up using that "backrestless" chair after 2 weeks of inconvenience, but decided to give it one more week and then the magic happened :-) Mild lower back pain automatically gone.
Care to share an example of this backrestless chair? Is it like a regular chair just without the backrest, or has some other differences? Does it have armrests for example, and if not - does it bother you?
I went with an overkill approach at first (as I often do :-) and bought some expensive nicely designed "active chair" / stool that was adjustable high enough so that I could lean on it even when using my desk as a standing desk. It was interesting, but not a game changer at all for me. I don't use standing desks now at all.
But what I have now is this:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002FL3LY4
Just don't assemble the backrest at first. If sitting up straight, I just lean wrists on my keyboard wristpad and part of forearms on the desk, no armrests needed either.
Edit: I still use my height-adjustable standing desk, but now it's value is that I could adjust it for the perfect height for my sitting-up-straight position (so no chair armrests needed) and it's been fixed at that height for the last 7 years...
Not sure which one the parent was referring to but personalizing I've been using one of these for more than a decade at this point (I'm sitting on it right now) https://www.varierfurniture.com/en/products
The one I have does have a backrest but because of the way it's shaped you don't actually use it to slouch. It's more there to support when you lean back and want to take a break from typing or something like that.
A codebase search for "claude" only has 1 hit in the code (the markdown that you referenced) and 4 commits which include the word in the commit message, or one commit includes .claude/ in the git ignore. See https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Atldev%2Fposturr+claude&ty...
Same with a codebase search for "anthropic"
I don't have a Mac, but even if I did would I have it constantly watching me? No. This sort of thing creeps me out.
Still, always good to see someone push out a new app. Well done.
This is a really cool idea. I’m a little put off with the idea that my camera is always watching me but the thought behind it is really cool.
I kind of feel the same way, but I want to try it. I’m pretty sure I have a spare webcam lying around, it could be interesting to have a “trusted” sensor for this app so that I can still keep my main webcam locked down.
Why use a proprietary stack for building this when there is a far more capable open ecosystem available at your fingertips?
do any more open applications like this exist? The idea seems great
I think this is an interesting application of computer vision for healthcare purposes.
I've noticed that the app tends to use 15% of my CPU constantly. I wonder if there is room to improve efficiency so that the app does not hog resources.
And herein lies the rub: higher up in the comments we've got people Very Excited that this was co-written with a bot.
Slouching is caused by the design of chairs and soreness in a single sitting position. I have a love-hate relationship with my Salli chair, but angle your legs down and slouching is no longer an issue, to the point where you don't even need a back on your chair.
Install a pull up bar in your room. It will fix your back better than anything else.
1 min plank in the morning is a big help too
While this seems to detect posture fairly well, the screen blurring doesn't work for me despite allowing what appear to be the relevant permissions. (macOS 15.1)
I had the exact same issue and have fixed it here: https://github.com/wklm/posturr
I added compatibility mode that incorporates the public API. Give it a shot please. I welcome any feedback.
I've released 1.0.3 with compatibility mode to use public APIs. The blur isn't as good, but better than nothing!
1.0.4 is release with better descriptions.
No image in the readme, bummer.
Why are programmers so bad at this? It's never been easier to take and share screenshots, but a lot of technical people would rather write and have you read 500 words than post a single screenshot. Boggles my mind.
Highly recommend the LookAway app if you are on macOS and looking for something encouraging you to take breaks and maintain good posture.
I wonder if this is less about “bad posture” and more about how people unconsciously optimize for stability when thinking deeply. When I’m reasoning through something hard, I tend to lock into whatever position minimizes micro-adjustments - even if it looks terrible ergonomically.
Lots of things people might want to monitor for such as nail biting.
This is cool, I built something similar a while back. I originally wanted the screen to dim when I slouched but I couldn't get access to dimming on OSX. I ended up just playing a noise when I slouched. It became so distracting I stopped using it.
The blurring of the screen is a much better idea.
I can't seem to open it. It keeps saying "Apple could not verify “Posturr.app” is free of malware that may harm your Mac or compromise your privacy.".
I tried opening by right-cliking on the app file, holding option, etc.
I'm on Sequoia 15.7.3 (24G419)
you have to go into your Privacy & Security settings and scroll down until you see something like "Posturr.app was blocked to protect your Mac." and then press "Open Anyway"
Ohhh... Thank you!
Is this new? In previous version I could just right-click and it would open it.
Looks like this changed for Sequoia: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mh40616/15.0/...
And looks like Sonoma was the last version to support the right click menu: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mh40616/14.0/...
This should no longer be a problem. I am notarizing the app!
[dead]
Love it - I did something like this for when codex is done - a script runs to detect if I’m at my computer or not and then notify my phone if I walked away that it’s done - mostly so I can get back to slouching ;)
Works pretty well, probably too resource heavy to just always keep on. Suggestion: give the user a shortcut key to close the app in case the blur goes haywire on them.
Hi - thanks for the feedback. I've improved CPU usage with the latest release. I'll look into a kill switch.
Would be cool to see integration with something like Upright Go or other sensors you place on your back that detect tilt etc.
this is great! I made one for nail-biters: https://github.com/cacoos/trackhands
I code on my bed, guess no slouching at all
It would be great if there was something like this, but for not wearing reading glasses.
Guzzles my CPU, cool though! Would use if it didn't eat up half a core to boot.
I reduced the vision processing to about 10 fps as well as reduced camera resolution. I saw about an 80% reduction in CPU! Thanks for the feedback.
Is there anyone out there who’s productive and sitting upright? Asking for me..
Black Mirror is nearly here.
I would love this but for detecting when I'm not wearing my glasses!
“If only the world had some way to remind be to wear my glasses … like going all blurry or something.”
I get you - but making it absurd is where my brain went immediately. >.<
If I’m not wearing my glasses the screen blurs organically.
Doesn't the screen already go blurry when you're not wearing your glasses?
It's a spectrum I'm trying to avoid it getting that bad
I think he's joking
I wish
Staying in upright posture for too long is also not good for you.
I would pay $10 for this.
lol, whenever I am hacking intensely, I am lying down on my bed with laptop tilted with the perfect angle.
I guess this app won’t catch me slouching then.
Not that I have particularly bad posture, but…
> Posturr uses your Mac's camera
Not all of us have web cams, or are willing to tolerate them from a security perspective. [apologetic grin]
.gitignore > # Claude Code > .claude/
Congratulations! I love seeing people express themselves to release things that were previously not economically viable to prioritize
Forget worrying about a 10x dev, Claude Code with the Opus 4.5 model has turned me into a 100x developer even in software stacks I'm not even familiar with. And with playwright-mcp its completely absolved the need for UX designers in my workflow because I just point playwright-mcp at an already established and A/B tested website for its UX principles. This gives me results far beyond what v0, lovable or Claude Code would come up with on its own.
Satire i hope
That whole "good posture" thing is future physical problems waiting to happen. For 25 years, I've always put my feet up on the corner of my desk (to the left), set the seat as high as possible (or adjust the desk lower) and lean back, arms extended. Basically, I'm positioned like an F1 driver in a cockpit.
No back problems as there's no weight on my spine. No carpal tunnel issues, as my wrists are always flat. No fatigue from holding my body at right angles for hours at a time.
The downside is I look like a total slacker in the office, especially to narrow minded image conscious managers who expect me "to act professionally."
How can you tell if a short person is slouching? Or a tall person?
I'm not the author, but I assume it benchmarks the highest height of your head, blurs from there, and updates its baseline if you ever appear higher.
Meaning that the way to have "perfect posture" is never to sit up straight in the first place :-)
It has a calibration step
If you assume a person’s chair height and desk height are both set optimally, then I guess the person’s height doesn’t matter for this detection.
You can tell its slop cuz its 1k lines in a single main.swift file lol
About 20 years ago they was an early XDG /Compiz plugin called ‘literal focus’ - as a joke, it only focused the focused window. It’s amusing to see this technique being used more practically.
Great, so now my eyes and back are going to be f'd. Just step away from the screen and take regular breaks.
One thing I learned from my physio: in your spine, everything is connected.
For example, even if you sit perfectly upright, if you have anterior pelvic tilt, it can change the whole dynamics of your spine, that the cervical segment takes a lot of load that it isn't supposed to do.
Or with bad habits you can reprogram your neuromuscular system that it uses the wrong muscles to maintain posture, that can lead a series of problems long term.
If you have back/neck pain or tension that does not resolve in 1-2 weeks, go to a physio.
Plz make a Windows version :)))
Anyone want to vibe code this to work on linux or M$
Great contrarian indicator for when people say that vibe coding is not "real development work" or economically viable/a job in the future - here is someone asking if another person can vibe code something for them that is single file of swift, the prompt could be as simple as "convert this to linux".
I don't think Linux has an equivalent of Apple's vision API, and if it does I guarantee it's not as robust and isn't baked-in to every Linux distro (the way Vision is baked-in to every Mac released after X date).
That alone will likely prevent this from just being a "convert to Linux" vibe session ... which is unfortunate, as I would LOVE to have this on Linux.
Yep, this is the bottleneck. Otherwise I would have done the prompt myself.
I literally hire interns to vibe code... sooo.. I don't need to be sold.
So now I gotta squint while I slouch!
Great, now I'll get sick eyes too
* laughs histerically
This is interesting, because in many ways I’m almost the exact opposite.
If I’m slouched in my chair, then I’m either completely disengaged or doing something mundane like dealing with email. If I’m upright or sat forward then I’m engaged and executing, but maybe not thinking deeply - I’m doing something I’ve already thought about and decided on. And if I’m on my feet and moving around, often doing some mundane chore like emptying the dishwasher, then I’m likely thinking.
It’s actually a really good illustration of why one size fits all solutions when it comes to work environment and conditions are often so unsatisfactory.
I'm like you at 9 a.m. and like grand parent by 9 p.m.
This is how things get built for me as well. I have a standing desk and like using it occasionally but if you see me standing at it you can bet I'm doing something typical like emails or chat and not thinking deeply.
Funny, I’m the same. I also like taking walks to think but I’ve found that I must have my head pointing almost directly down (I.e. looking at my feet). It’s also how I stand thinking in the shower, with the warm water hitting my angled neck. Maybe something beneficial about that position of the neck, or maybe just habit!
I will also have conversations in my head during my walk, I’ve done this my whole life and I’m not sure to this day whether my lips move during these or not. In any case, I must get some funny looks with head bolted to the ground mumbling to myself…
Alas, I'm not alone in meditating and thinking while taking a shower. It's one of the moments of my day when I recollect what happened, what I need to do, and what not to do.
The problem is that I can get quite lost during this phase, and hot water isn't cheap, so my SO is always threatening to put a big timer in the bathroom.
Sing it!
As for the software. I would not want a camera on 24/7 (on any device, a compromise being my doorbell, which isn't cloud connected). It'd defeat the small LED which informs you it is on (since it is always-on), and if the machine is compromised this is a method to receive personal data.
Actually, I'd prefer a hardware killswitch on things like camera and microphone.
Post-It makes an excelent kill switch for the camera. not effective for audio though
In my case, though walks help declutter my mind somewhat, for deeper thoughts, I have to write it down sitting or laying in the bed in the worst of positions. Thinking too deeply while walking only leaves me anxious in the end as I tend to get sidetracked a lot in conversation and always have to restart the conversation over and over again.
I used paper a lot to jot my ideas and all sorts of diagrams but lately I just pull Claude and chat it out, it works like a thinking environment.
I suppose in that position your head has lower elevation, allowing for better circulation.
Uhhh… are you me? No other comment has hit more home. Nice. Mayne there’s something about these physical practices helping mental abilities.
Wear earbuds like you’re on call or recording something
I've fully embraced looking insane in public. Try it some time; you won't go back.
haha, sounds good.
My productivity is generally measured in how much time I sit on the porcelain thinking throne first.
Truer words have never been spoken. That and planning out your day & thinking through problems in the shower.
If you delete social media, and leave your phone away from your person all day with notifications turned off, you can have these moments all the time it turns out.
Considering how much more productive these moments are for me than the bullshit I used to do on my phone and social media, it was an easy decision to make.
Oh, lol, now I get your question. Yea, it turns out the silence and lack of distractions are what produce "shower thoughts", more so than the act of showering itself.
Doing any relatively rote act like washing dishes, walking places, etc can also give rise to them. Not having a device in your hand to constantly steal your attention really helps though.
With a faucet my good friend!
Play it on a speaker.
Walking the dog is my go to for thinking through problems. The dog really loves the hard problems as they get a longer walk.
I never understood this. Is this why the cubicles are always full in the office? WTF I go in there take a dump and leave while the people on each side are just silent the whole time. I can think of much better places to think.
[dead]
This is both funny and so true. I'm most productive when I'm about to fall out of the chair and I don't even care that my elbow is hanging off.
My neck is screaming in empathetic pain for your future neck!
This was me, and now I have horrific back pain almost every week. Fix what's broken before it breaks you.
That’s funny, but this is about physical health not productivity. I’m guessing you are relatively young. Desk jobs are tough on the body!
It would be much more interesting that the system blur when it finds we drift from being "in the zone".
"I'm going to quickly shift from my terminal to this chrome tab to check this documentation but while it loads I'll get a dopamine hit from X."
Blur the screen and help me get back on track...
it will be interesting to see as these tools emerge to what extent the undercontrolled behavior is a piece of a larger cycle of attention and context mgmt, or if all of that time can be nudged back into the zone
It is OSS, I guess you could invert it.
I've found something similar. I can measure my stress by how many coffee mugs are on my desk.
Exactly what I came here to say. I've been programming for 40 years, 35 professionally, and I didn't find my ergonomic, no-pain, no-RSI happy place until I stopped following advice to sit up straight. I set my chair with just enough resistance, set the head rest where it puts my eyeline directly on my monitors, which are set considerably higher than average and about a metre from my head. I can work for hours like this now, with no pain.
I could never use an app like this. Maybe I should write one that blurs the screen when I don't slouch.
Get a lazy boy, fit a split keyboard to each arm and develop AGI then. I’m sick of these RAM prices.
Gamer lean is when it gets really serious.
Let's not forget the people who work from bed with AR glasses and a projector pointed at the ceiling.
Sounds like you're literally the target audience for this app.
Not if there is a hard positive correlation between productivity and slouching, like they say.
this is the way