A: The short answer is yes, investing in a standing desk is worth considering, especially for a solo or small firm lawyer who wears many hats. Standing desks support better health, boost productivity, and can contribute to a more professional and modern office setup.
First, the health benefits are compelling. Sitting for extended periods increases the risk of heart disease, obesity, and chronic back pain. A standing desk encourages movement and better posture, helping reduce those risks. Many standing desks are now designed to switch easily between sitting and standing positions, giving you the flexibility to move throughout the day without disrupting your workflow.
Second, standing desks can enhance focus and productivity. Studies have shown that alternating between sitting and standing improves energy levels and reduces fatigue. As a solo practitioner, you don’t have the luxury of delegating much, so keeping your mind sharp and your body energized is essential.
Additionally, investing in a standing desk signals that you care about your work environment. It modernizes your office and can even be a subtle marketing tool. Clients and peers will see that you invest in yourself and your workspace—an indicator that you’re forward-thinking and detail-oriented.
Of course, you’ll want to consider comfort and budget. Look for ergonomic models with adjustable height settings, memory presets, and sturdy build quality. You can start with a basic converter or invest in a full electric model depending on your needs.
In short, a standing desk is more than a trendy piece of furniture. It’s a smart move toward a healthier, more productive work life.
Techie: Ashley Hallene, JD, is GPSolo eReport Editor-in-Chief ([email protected]).
A: While Microsoft OneNote gives you all kinds of features and flexibility, it’s not for everyone. Obsidian, Joplin, and Docmost are free alternatives.
Some of us look for free, open-source alternatives to Microsoft products. The Microsoft ecosystem can be bloated, complicated, and frustrating. Obsidian offers a free, elegant alternative for taking notes and organizing all kinds of information.
If you used WordPerfect with Reveal Codes, you have a feel for the control offered by Obsidian. Obsidian has a rich-text editor but also lets you reveal and edit the underlying markup. You have most of the formatting options of a more bloated program, including bold, underline, italics, internal links, web page links, image links, headings, superscripts, footnotes, strikethrough, highlighting, and more.
Obsidian makes it breathtakingly quick and easy to organize and link all your writings, notes, ideas, outlines, checklists, images, website links—you name it. Every Obsidian note can link to other notes just by typing [[ and entering a note name. The closing ]] is automatically entered. A side panel can display back links. It is so easy to jump from note to note to find what you need. Full-text search is lightning fast, too. Numerous YouTube videos describe alternate ways of organizing information with Obsidian.
Obsidian supports synchronization across devices. It uses very little space on each one. So, you can have your “personal brain” with you wherever you are. You can use a free, third-party sync option or pay $4 per month for Obsidian Sync.
Unfortunately, Obsidian does not lend itself well to collaborating on notes and documents with other people. If you want to work together with others, Joplin and Docmost are well suited to collaboration. Both offer essentially all the note-taking features of Obsidian. With them, you can share access to notebooks and collaborate on editing a single note together with a colleague. That sharing involves either paying for a subscription or setting up a free, self-hosted application (with all the complications and time investment that goes with self-hosting).
At its core, Obsidian is a personal note-taking application. It has grown well beyond that core, delivering a variety of features without requiring you to digest a lot of complexity. Obsidian is open source and free for individuals and organizations. Commercial use is permitted.
Obsidian is an excellent, private, free option for you to create and keep track of research, writings, links, and information.
Techie: Wells H. Anderson, JD, GPSolo eReport Contributing Technology Editor and CEO of SecureMyFirm, can be reached at 952/922-1120 or through www.securemyfirm.com. His focus is on protecting small firms from cyber threats with affordable, multiple layers of defense.
If you have a technology question, please forward it to Managing Editor Rob Salkin ([email protected]) at your earliest convenience. Our response team selects the questions for response and publication. Our regular response team includes Jeffrey Allen, Wells H. Anderson, Ashley Hallene, Al Harrison, and Matthew Murrell. We publish submitted questions anonymously, just in case you do not want someone else to know you asked the question.
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