There's lots of reasons not to eat at your desk. Messy fingers. Crumbs in the keyboard. But the real reason has less to do with cleanliness and more to do with your eating habits. If you're making a resolution to shed a few pounds this year, couple it up with a pledge to keep food away from your workspace.
Keeping a clean desk is important, sure. But what's more important is your health. Regularly eating at your desk can force you to develop a habit, as your brain begins to associate working with eating. After a while, you'll find yourself craving snacks as you sit down to work, consuming extra calories along the way.
Making a pledge to keep eating in the kitchen or dining room and away from the desk helps to remove your mind's association of food with working at your desk or playing games. The same goes for eating in front of the TV. If you do it often, it becomes an unhealthy habit.
If you're already in an eating-at-the-desk rut, you can also use this habit-forming behavior to your advantage. Instead of snacking at your desk, grab for a bottle of water to build an association between your workspace and getting hydrated.
Of course, sometimes you absolutely must eat in front of the computer. So if you're crunched for time because of a late-night deadline or a terribly important lunch call, you can at least try to keep it clean.
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We do not have a cafeteria or kitchen with tables in our office so this does not help.
How about a foldable table? Something to break the pattern.
I keep a small bowl of fruit at my desk. If I get the munchies, I reach for an orange instead of thinking of something salty or sweet.
My employer does not provide a break room for staff.
I eat at my desk nearly every day. I don't have a problem controlling myself nor do I associate food with working.
I eat at my desk but move the keyboard and put down a placemat. Frankly, I'm too busy working to snack at my desk.
I don't normally like to argue against the tips posted on Apartment Therapy but this tip seems like a dud. While it would be wonderful to be able to eat away from my desk, the time I'm allotted to venture away from work and eat would leave me hungry and miserable. I like the idea of keeping a bowl of fruit at one's desk like @thesongbirdy !
I eat at my desk regularly. There are two things that I do to make sure I don't overeat:
1. I don't keep a store of food at my desk. Lots of people in my office have bags of candy, boxes of granola bars, etc. at their desks. I only bring what I plan on eating everyday so there isn't stuff lying around *if* I get hungry/bored.
2. I set specific times to eat (breakfast at 9 AM, snack at 11:30 AM, lunch at 1 PM, snack at 3 PM). It really helps for those times I feel starved - I just tell myself I can eat in 20 minutes when 1 PM rolls around.
I do the same thing as Miller8786. If I do happen to be hungry at a non-meal or snack time I just get up and go for a quick walk, get some water or something, then come back. By then, any urge to snack is gone and I'm ready to get back to work.
doilies.
every time apartment therapy strays away from design and decorating it just seems so off.
every morning, i come to work with three items: my coffee in a tumbler, my lunch for that day and a snack like celery or yogurt. those are my options. i couldn't eat more if i wanted to.
I'm a serial eat-at-my-work-desk'er but I've recently started changing that, not for any of the reasons listed above, but because I've started wearing a pedometer and I struggle to get enough steps without a bit of midday activity. So far it's a really nice change to my routine.