Here is your new situation: You are not sitting; you are side-lying on a bed. Your
computer screen is either a flat screen monitor or a laptop which you mount sideways
on the side of your bed, a table or a shelf. If you use a laptop, you open
it fully flat, and ignore its keyboard since you use a keyboard plugged into
the back of the computer. You may even use two keyboards—but neither are your
laptop's! You type at a gentle slant with one hand, and upwards with the other
hand, since one keyboard has one edge raised a few inches while the other one
is upside-down. If you are wondering if your keyboard is hanging from the ceiling,
rest assured it is not (although your forearm may be!). The keyboard hangs
from a board which is on stilts.
You have almost nowhere to put things
that you can reach from this position, so you mount your files and books in
Wall File Pockets on the wall at the head of the bed; and this is easy to reach.
You wall-mount a document holder on a hinged stick that swings out above the
screen. You also wall-mount such things as a hub, router, lamp, cables, a power
supply, a telephone, and an intercom. You need to reach only the latter two of
these with your fingers.
You may need to build laptop/flat screen holders
on both sides of your bed due to the need for changing positions for comfort.
It's a bit of a hassle to move the equipment to the other side, but only
takes a minute. You may prefer to do computing on one side and lie on the other
side for everything else you do side-lying-although it's important to change sides
while sleeping.
You'll likely type more slowly, so you'll want
to use shortcut keys, macros, and AutoCorrect to help you get more done. Another
way to be efficient relates to how you use the stilt keyboard. If you're a touch
typist, you'll type the same keys as before, mostly, except that half of the
keys you type you'll type upwards. The same goes for hunt-and-peck typists that
are changing to touch typing. But if you plan to stay with hunt-and-peck and
haven't a single brain cell open to the idea of changing your ways (I'm embarrassed
to say I'm one of these), then you'll learn to use a stilt keyboard in strange
ways to supplement your other hand.
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