Finding a balance between health and productivity
This is a Q&A with designer Alex M. Chong on his custom-built workspace with two distinct work modes that adjust to time, and taking conference calls in the washroom.
We are continuing on the workspace trend everyone. Last time, I presented two lovely workspaces that you can check out and share anytime!
This time, Alex M. Chong answers questions about his custom-built workspace. Let me introduce you to him: he is a product design strategist, community founder, interaction and service designer. He worked as BrainStation Toronto’s Lead Educator for almost 3 years and now takes on clients as a professional UX Career Coach.
Here, he presents us with his workspace at home and how he negotiates it with his partner. Get ready for some exciting details on his meditation corner, his custom-built office, and the reason why he sits on stools. Fun fact, Alex is also the reason why UX Sauna Sessions are called what they are today. You’re curious right? Let’s go!
The origin of the name: UX Sauna Sessions
Just for context, let me tell you how Alex and I met. It was through two mutual friends and designers that live in Toronto. I spent a few days there last fall before a Black Professionals in Technology conference. I precisely remember going for dim sum with them for the first time in my life in Chinatown that late morning and the three of us chatting at a bubble tea place afterwards. It was still pre-UX Sauna Sessions and I was looking for the single best concept to capture the essence of the community I was bringing together in Montreal. I was brainstorming the perfect name and Alex happened to talk about his time in Helsinki, Finland and how public baths were places for community gatherings. And voilà. And now it happens that he accepted to showcase his workspace with the community. How convenient for us all!
Alex, before jumping into what your workspace looks like, tell us about the overall apartment you share with your partner.
“Yeah, sure. So, because we're in what I consider to be a reasonably-sized condo that's just under 600 square feet, for two people that means we have to be clever with how we use spaces for multiple purposes. Our unit is one of those condos that have a silly sliding door between our main space and the bedroom – which means that our whole unit is more or less one space. This became a particular challenge during the pandemic times, since we both are working from home at the same time while needing to regularly hop on conference calls. Having distinct spaces during work hours is important.”
How do you practically negotiate the space with your partner?
“Prior to the pandemic, my setup was actually on the left of the desk in the photo above – while my partner would have her setup on the right. During the pandemic, her office became the kitchen table (which can be seen slightly off in the distance in that photo on the right) while I ended up taking over this office area.
My computer setup switched to the right-side smaller desk, because it was important to be able to peek my head out and see how bright it is outside – giving my body a sense of time and the day passing. Before I moved my computer setup to the right, I would find myself frequently disoriented about what time of day it was. I would sit at my desk while it’s daytime outside, then turn around in panic to: WHAT, IT’S NIGHT ALREADY? In fairness this was over the winter months with early sunsets, but the point is being able to tweak little adjustments like having a sense of natural time passing with daylight is important to keep you sane during these times. But I digress.
In the evenings, my partner's office gets packed up and returns back to a shared living room space where we hang out together. So we have that during-the-day, and evening-setup distinct from one another.”
Yes, I can definitely relate to that experience of losing a sense of time. I also know that your background is in architectural design. Does that influence how you modify or plan spaces in any way?
That’s a good question – for some context, I actually designed and built the entire office area with the support of a friend of mine. There really is no other setup that would have fit and maximized that nook other than building it completely custom. The wood panels on the wall really warm up the space – making it feel more natural, especially living in a very unnatural generic condo space. The office area is a nook that is a bit off to the side of the main unit (also where the entrance area is), and during the pandemic I got the idea that I could clearly denote different spaces by putting up a curtain. After separating the office, we now have 3 distinct spaces (bedroom, main space, and office area) plus a washroom – where I sometimes take my calls haha. Also, because my partner uses the main area during the day that means I have to find ways to make the most out of my office cove even for personal time during the day.
I mean you gotta do what you gotta do, right, taking calls in the washroom. You mentioned earlier that you wanted your body to sense natural time passing. Did you find a solution for that?
Yes. There are two modes I have for my office space – one is using the bright daylight LED tube light in the photo below, which signals to my body that it’s productive work time. I make sure to turn on that light at my 9AM start, and turn it off at my 5PM end.
The second mode is for my personal time outside of work hours. This is when I switch the daylight lamp off, and turn on warm temperature lights to make it feel more poetic, like I'm in the 16th century working under warm candlelight — which definitely helps me feel more relaxed (opposed to alert), and to dig deeper into my personal activities such as writing, studying languages, reading, ideating, etc.
Alex’s Daylight mode.
The night time mode after 5 PM.
Wow, it’s clear that you have created a very adaptable workspace that works for you and that you take both your productive and creative time seriously. I wonder, do you find space for contemplation or relaxation?
“As you can see in the photo below, I also have a little nook that I made into my meditation space, or to be used as a secondary place to sit and read. I find it really important to carve out these personal spaces when sharing such a tight living space, where you don't get much private moments needing to share every corner of the unit with your partner. In this case, that meditation space (tiny carpet, pillows) was carved out right in front of the main entrance door, and in front of our outdoor-clothes closet — both are things we don’t frequently use during the pandemic. Since we’re staying at home these days, I decided to re-claim that unused space as my mini personal living room.
What works out well is drawing the curtains, and sitting in the meditation area in the early morning to start the day with a meditation practice. I find this to be a really peaceful time because my partner and I are slowly waking up quietly.”
On the left corner in front of his closet door, Alex created a meditation area with a couple of pillows.
Let’s briefly talk about a couple of details in your space. Those masks, for instance. What are they and what do they mean to you?
Those masks are traditional Korean masks that you can buy in Korea in many tourist shops (which is what I did). What makes them special to me personally is that they remind me of my childhood since my grandparents had a set. I think handcraft is incredibly special and something that is lost among our modern day digital designers, where it's common to meet digital designers who have basic hand drawing abilities and really messy handwriting. Handcraft needs to be more highly revered in this modern digital age.
I also notice a couple of stools in your office and no standard office chair. Why do you sit on stools?
There’s two types of body pain that comes from sitting. First there is pain that comes from poor ergonomics: your body being in poor posture which can cut off blood circulation, pinch nerves, cause muscle strain, etc. Secondly, there is pain that comes from your muscles becoming weak from sitting too long, as your other muscles find a way to overcompensate for that weakness and unexpectedly become overworked. As our economy begins to slowly open up, I can see a lot of physiotherapists being kept busy fixing the amount of damage that sitting has caused, working from home.
With that said, that is the main reason behind my choice to sit on a stool versus an office chair. It addresses category #2, in order to sit on a chair that has no back support you have to engage your muscles (mainly your core, and your back). This is physically much more tiring of course, but it also promotes strengthening. The trick however is to not slip into category #1, since you can slouch when on a stool – which is far worse than being on an office chair. So it’s a gentle balance between taking enough breaks so that the back doesn’t get too tired that it begins slouching.
This is actually the same idea when it comes to standing desks – standing desks aren’t inherently “better”, since if you are standing you’re engaging your leg muscles and back muscles to stand. But once you find yourself slouching, that damage is worse than sitting on an office chair. So it’s always balancing ergonomics with muscle engagement.
I actually discovered this when I was attending a 10-day meditation retreat – but not because it was taught at the retreat, rather out of survival to adapt to long sitting durations. At a 10-day retreat it’s about 100 hours of sitting, so you can imagine the need to devise healthy sitting habits. When meditating, it becomes quickly apparent that sitting in a good posture, while more tiring, will allow for longer-endurance and prevent much more severe pain.
Before we wrap up the tour and interview, we haven’t talked about digital tools yet. Can you share about a favourite app of the moment?
My favourite tool right now is BreakTimer, which is on one hand kind of sad that my favourite app during a pandemic is the desktop app that forces me to take breaks… but on the other hand it’s profoundly helped me stay healthy. It’s a very simple app – it goes off every 30 minutes to block my screen so I take a break. My break time interval is only 2 minutes, so I just accept that I need to take it It’s kind of a love-hate thing: every time it goes off I walk away from my computer a little bit peeved, and to resolve these feelings go do a quick exercise to calm myself down from being peeved. That means it’s doing its job.
Somewhat related is those yellow bars you can see off to the side in the last photo. I have fun with them – sometimes I put those bars (there's two) literally as my arm-rests beside my stool, so that when I take breaks every 30 minutes I lift my body up and let my lower body hang — which does a great job in decompressing the lower spine. I’ve validated this with my chiropractor, and it’s a fantastic stretch. You can do this with any chair that has arm rests. I also use those bars to exercise regularly when I take breaks.
Thanks, Alex, this was fantastic! I greatly appreciate you giving us access to your office and sharing it with the community.
No problem whatsoever – it’s incredibly easy to forget how inspirational this space could be to others, since to me it’s become a backdrop of everyday day-in day-out. Talking about the space brings me back to the days when I would get excited about building and transforming the space with deep intention, as well as tweaking it every so often as I learn new things about myself and the dynamic between me and my partner. It’s nice to see spaces transform as we discover more about ourselves, and becomes an important extension to who we are. For me, a home is not just a place to store your things – it’s a living vessel that if you take care of and love, it will return love by taking care of you.
Did you learn as much as I did from Alex’s rationale on his workspace, learning and prioritizing systems and health tips? I totally understand why he created those two work modes, so he can see and feel time pass. I tend to stare at my screen for too long and forget to even lift my gaze for a split second. Yeah, it’s not very sustainable, but I try to practice tai chi during breaks and go for hikes every evening.
On another note: I would feel a little stressed to have my phone remind me to take breaks every 30 minutes. I wonder if you feel the same way too. If I am honest though, I am intrigued about taking conference calls from the washroom: can the person on the other side sense it as your voice bounces off the tiles? I don’t know, but it’s not that I want to try it out, of course (lies).
We are wrapping it up right here. If you want to get in touch with Alex, check him out on LinkedIn.
As for you, would you like to share your workspace and personal ways of working with the community? Get in touch with me anytime.
AM