Why I Mouse Left Handed

Technology
person mousing left handed

If you come into my office you will find my mouse on the left side of my keyboard.

I am right-handed. But I purposely mouse with my left hand.

A couple of years ago, I started having right shoulder problems. I would sit down at the computer and after a while, my right shoulder would start to bother me. It wasn’t painful. But it was uncomfortable enough that I noticed it.

At first, I just ignored these little “niggles” and got on with whatever computer work I needed to do.

Those “niggles” were my body whispering to me: “Something is amiss. Nothing bad is going to happen right this moment. But I am giving you adequate warning to do something about it soon so something really bad doesn’t happen in the not-too-distant future.”

I confess I did not listen.

Things did not get better. In fact, the discomfort in my right shoulder would appear sooner and sooner after I sat down at the computer. It got to the point that just reaching for the mouse would set it off.

Resting and coming back to the computer did not help.

Because when I came back to the computer I was still moussing the same old way that was directly causing the pain.

I needed to do my moussing differently.

I have a wireless keyboard, so I tried sliding the keyboard over to the left so I could bring my mouse in closer when I was using it. This made my shoulder feel better.

But that was not a workable solution as often I am going back and forth frequently between moussing and typing and I needed my keyboard centered in front of me.

What I learned from this experiment was that my shoulder was happiest when my hands stayed within the width of my shoulders. The further outside the width of my shoulders my hands went, the more uncomfortable my shoulders were.

Ask any ergonomics consultant and they will tell you exactly what I found out by experimenting: try to keep your hands within the width of your shoulders.

The problem with my keyboard and most keyboards is that there is a number pad attached to the right side of the keyboard.

computer keyboard

Traditional keyboards have a number pad attached to the right-hand side

This means that if you use a traditional mouse as I do, it must be placed too far to the right to be comfortable. Each time you reach for it you are moving your right hand outside the width of your shoulder and that taxes the muscle.

computer keyboard with mouse on the right side

But there wasn’t a number pad attached to the left side of my keyboard. So, I decided to try moussing on that side. It solved my problem immediately. It took me about 3 weeks to get used to moussing with the left hand. I was a bit slower at first and I had to pay more attention to it but it was well worth the effort. And it feels great to use my left hand as most of the time my right-hand does most of the daily chores.

computer keyboard with mouse on the left

Check out this very good video by the Ergonomics Guy on this topic.

Image by cosmix from Pixabay

4 comments… add one

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  • Imogen Ragone March 21, 2017, 2:00 pm

    I did a similar thing a few years ago, as I noticed I had a lot of habitual tension when using the mouse with my right hand. I now typically use my left hand, but will also switch from side to side if I’m doing a lot of “mouse-work.” As I didn’t have as much habit associated with using my left hand, I was able to be more aware, more easily, with what I was doing.

    Thanks for your blog posts, Lauren. I love them.

    Reply
    • Lauren Hill March 22, 2017, 4:41 pm

      You bring up a really good observation Imogen–and that is when you do something with your non-dominant side, because it is not habitual and therefore not on auto-pilot, you automatically are more present and more aware of how you are doing what you are doing. And that’s a good thing! I try to find excuses to do things on the side I am not used to for this reason. I love to do this with putting on my pants or my jacket as well. Thanks for contributing to the conversation.

      Reply
  • Michaela Hauser-Wagner March 23, 2017, 4:24 am

    years ago I had the same problem, my mouse was far to the right – in part because the cord attaching it to the computer was rather short. so I bought a wireless mouse that I keep on a elevated stool in front of me between my legs and lower than the keyboard.

    Reply
    • Lauren Hill March 25, 2017, 8:16 am

      Thanks Michaela for sharing another creative solution to the same problem.

      Reply

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