Excellent advice for office workers Even without this new interior design, my study was starting to resemble Steptoe and Son's sitting room: with a telescope, a model Spitfire, piles of books and a drum kit that my eldest son has decided he no longer wants in his bedroom. This desk-on-chairs arrangement might be the final straw. I'll tell my wife it's only temporary until I can get a purpose-built one, or until the novelty wears off and I go back to sitting in a chair, because actually my back is already starting to twinge, and although I am not a qualified doctor, I'm pretty sure standing too much gives you varicose veins. I'll give it a week. Report back. Meanwhile, I have another, more pretentious incentive for giving it a go. Standing is thought to improve your creativity and focus as a writer. Your muscles are engaged and you're less comfortable, so you stay alert. Also, when writing becomes a more physical activity, it makes your prose more vigorous. That at least was Hemingway's theory. When he wrote, he stood in a pair of oversized loafers on the worn skin of a lesser kudu - his typewriter at chest-height, resting on a cabinet. The more I've delved into this stand-as-you-write idea, the more I have come to appreciate its literary pedigree. The Victorians were mad for it, with Dickens, among others, working at a "standing desk." Vladimir Nabokov was another. And more recently, Philip Roth penned his best work while vertical at a lectern. He was - I say "was" because he recently hung up his pen, or put the lid back on it, or did whatever it is you do when you stop writing - also a keen pacer, claiming to walk half a mile for every page he wrote. Which brings me to the second piece of advice in the air this week. Psychologists have suggested that over-stimulated minds are counterproductive, and that if you want to boost creativity and lateral thinking among your staff, you should encourage them to stare into space. More time daydreaming, doodling and generally being bored, that's the gist. This makes a lot of sense. As an experiment this Christmas, we had a digital-free day when our children were not allowed to have contact with iPhones, laptops, Xboxes or televisions. Sure enough, in desperation they were soon making things, drawing, reading, doing jigsaws, cooking and, because it was raining outside, playing indoor cricket. They fashioned stumps out of a lamp, a vase and a laundry basket.