Ergonomic desk setup checklist, with numbers you can measure

A good desk setup lets you sit with your feet on the floor, your elbows bent between 90 and 120 degrees, your wrists straight, and the top of your screen at or slightly below eye level, 20 to 40 inches (50 to 100 cm) away ^[1][4]. This checklist goes from the floor up so you can work through it in about ten minutes with a tape measure.

Treat it as a starting point. A Cochrane review of 15 randomized trials with 2,165 office workers found low-quality or inconsistent evidence for most single ergonomic changes on neck and upper limb problems ^[6]. You still have good reasons to set up a comfortable workstation, but no setup replaces changing position through the day.

Feet, chair, and hips

Start with the chair, because everything above it depends on where your body sits.

• Feet flat on the floor, or on a footrest. OSHA says chair height is right when the entire sole of your foot rests on the floor and the back of your knee sits slightly higher than the seat ^[2].
• Thighs roughly parallel to the floor, and knees about the same height as your hips ^[1].
• Seat depth that supports most of your thigh without the front edge touching the back of your knee ^[2].
• A backrest with height-adjustable lumbar support that can recline at least 15 degrees from vertical and lock in place or be tension adjustable ^[2].
• Your back against the backrest, not perched on the front edge.

If your low back gets sore from sitting, Low Back Pain Coach is our guided back-training app: lowbackpaincoach.com.

Desk and keyboard

• Desk or keyboard tray at the height where your elbows hang beside your body and bend between 90 and 120 degrees ^[1][3].
• Wrists straight, in line with your forearms, roughly parallel to the floor ^[1].
• Keyboard close enough that your elbows stay near your body and your forearms are roughly parallel to the floor, with no reaching ^[3].
• Mouse next to the keyboard, so you do not stretch your shoulder to reach it ^[3].
• If your desk is fixed and too high, raise your chair and add a footrest. The desk height calculator gives you a number for your body.

Monitor

• Top of the screen at or slightly below eye level, and the center of the screen about 15 to 20 degrees below your horizontal line of sight ^[4]. Cornell puts it at about 17 to 18 degrees below horizontal ^[5].
• Viewing distance of 20 to 40 inches (50 to 100 cm) from your eyes to the screen, roughly arm's length ^[4][5].
• Directly in front of you, within 35 degrees to either side, so your head, neck, and torso face forward ^[4].
• Tilt of no more than 10 to 20 degrees, with the screen perpendicular to windows to cut glare ^[4].
• If you wear bifocals, OSHA says you may need the monitor lower so you do not tilt your head back ^[4].

The monitor height and distance guide has worked examples, and the monitor height calculator gives numbers for your body.

Laptop

A laptop breaks the setup rules, because the screen and keyboard are attached. Cornell's guidance for sustained laptop work is an external monitor and external keyboard, or at minimum a raised laptop with a separate keyboard and mouse ^[5]. Read the laptop ergonomics guide for the options.

Movement

• A brief look away from the screen about every 15 minutes, a short rest break every 30 to 60 minutes, and an exercise break every one to two hours, per Cornell ^[5].
• Change position through the day. OSHA lists upright sitting, standing, and slightly reclined sitting (torso 105 to 120 degrees from the thighs) as neutral options, and says sitting still for long periods is not healthy ^[1].
• In a 6-month cluster-randomized trial of high-risk office workers, new neck pain appeared in 17% of people assigned to active breaks and 17% assigned to regular posture shifts, versus 44% of the control group ^[7]. It is one trial, but it supports building movement into the day.
• The 5-minute desk routine is a short break you can do at your chair.

What if your desk or chair does not adjust?

Most people cannot change a fixed desk or a shared office chair, so work backward from the two things you can control. Set your chair so your feet rest flat on the floor with the back of your knee slightly above the seat ^[2]. If that leaves your elbows below the desk surface, you need a footrest, a lower keyboard tray, or a chair with adjustable arms. If your desk is too low, blocks under the legs or a taller desk are the options. Then match your monitor to your eye height with a riser or a stack of books.

If your feet no longer reach the floor after you raise the chair, add a footrest before anything else. A footrest costs little and returns your feet and thighs to the positions OSHA describes ^[1][2]. For a sit-stand desk, the standing desk height calculator gives you a starting height for standing.

How do you check the whole setup?

Sit as you normally work for a minute, then look at your side profile in a photo or in the free webcam check at /posture-check/. The check records about 5 seconds of you sitting tall, then about 20 seconds of you working, and shows how far your head and shoulders drift from your own reference. It runs in your browser and the video stays on your device. It is a prompt to adjust your setup, not a medical measurement.

Photograph the setup from the side once, too. Compare it with the numbers above: elbow angle, screen height, distance, and where your feet land.

When does a desk problem need a clinician?

Adjusting a desk will not help every kind of neck or back pain. See a clinician if you have pain that lasts more than a few weeks, pain that spreads into an arm or leg, numbness, tingling, or weakness, or pain after an injury. The guide to neck pain at a desk and when to see someone lists urgent warning signs with sources.