How to sit correctly at your home desk: a posture checklist

Good posture while working from home comes down to the same basics as any office setup — feet flat, lower back supported, screen at eye level, elbows near 90° — the real difference is that home furniture (a sofa, a dining table, a bed) usually wasn't designed for any of that, so getting there takes a few cheap adjustments instead of an out-of-the- box fit.

The basics, in one place

• Feet flat on the floor, knees at roughly 90°
• Lower back supported, not rounded or hanging unsupported
• Screen top at or just below eye level, at arm's length
• Elbows close to your sides, near 90°, not reaching forward or up
• Shoulders relaxed, not shrugged toward your ears

Room-by-room: adapting what you already have

• Dining table. Usually the best accidental desk in the house — the height is often close to right for an adult. The gap is almost always the chair: a dining chair rarely has lumbar support, so add a cushion or rolled towel at the small of your back.
• Sofa. The hardest setup to fix properly — soft cushions let your pelvis sink and roll back, and there's no fixed surface at the right height for a laptop. If it's your only option sometimes, sit toward the firmer front edge rather than sunk into the back, and raise the laptop on a tray or box so you're not looking down into your lap.
• Laptop on your lap. Guarantees a dropped chin and rounded shoulders within minutes, no matter how good your intentions are. A lap desk or even a stack of books under the laptop, paired with an external keyboard if you use this setup daily, fixes most of the problem for very little money.
• Bed. Works for short periods with real back support (pillows stacked against a headboard or wall) and a raised laptop — not propped on your stomach lying down, which is the single worst common position for your neck.

Affordable props that do most of the work

You don't need an ergonomic chair to fix most of this. A rolled towel or cushion for lumbar support, a stack of books or a box to raise a laptop screen to eye level, and a separate keyboard and mouse if you're typing directly on the laptop — in that order — fix the majority of home-desk posture problems for less than the cost of almost any piece of "ergonomic" furniture.

Quick micro-break exercises

• Shoulder rolls. 10 slow rolls backward, a few times through the day.
• Seated spinal twist. Gently rotate your torso toward each side, holding briefly.
• Standing hamstring stretch. A gentle forward fold with soft knees during any standing break.

5-point troubleshooting flow

1. Neck strain? Check screen height first — almost always a too-low screen.
2. Lower back pain? Check lumbar support — add a cushion before assuming you need a new chair.
3. Shoulder or wrist discomfort? Check keyboard distance and height — you're likely reaching or reaching up.
4. Legs falling asleep or knee discomfort? Check seat height and depth — your feet may not be properly supported.
5. Still uncomfortable after all of the above? That's a sign to take more frequent breaks rather than keep adjusting furniture that might already be fine.

Tracking whether it's actually working

It's easy to set up a home desk properly once and then slowly drift back into old habits over the following weeks — without a mirror or a colleague nearby to notice, nobody's watching but you. SitStraight's webcam-based posture alerts catch that drift in real time, its reminders and challenges (stand-up breaks, eye breaks, hydration) keep the rest of the routine running, and everything happens on-device — it never records or uploads your camera feed, so you can practice correct posture without worrying about privacy during calls. It's free to try through December 31, 2026.