RSI

I’ve been working a lot recently. And when I say a lot, I mean thousands of lines of Rails code across three projects, and thousands of lines of php across many projects. I started to get concerned about RSI. I’ve had vague work-related pain in my wrists in the past, and I think a big contributor to this was the fact that I once broke both my wrists. I’d elaborate on this, but it’s just way too embarrassing for me to slap that on my blog!

Back to RSI. I’ve found these two apps really helped:

Windows: Workrave

Workrave tells you when to take micro breaks, longer breaks, and what kinds of exercises to take. Seriously! The breaks were enough to help me, though.

Mac: AntiRSI

This is a slick little app that allows you to configure micro breaks and longer breaks, a bit like Workrave, but simplified. There’s no advice on exercises, just ‘get out of the office for God’s sake!’

As I said, these applications have had a marked effect on any work-related wrist pains. I’ve got a lot of friends and colleagues to try them out, and they’re were comfortable letting a piece of software be their master. Now, with that in mind, I think I’ll slightly edit the messages they see in Workrave, you never know what a subversive piece of software might get them to do!