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About this tool
Turn your workday and seated meeting hours into a clock-timed sitting and standing rotation with posture-change warnings.
The Sit-Stand Ratio Planner converts a workday length, fixed seated meeting hours and a daily standing target into a clock-timed rotation of sit and stand blocks. It follows the 2015 British Journal of Sports Medicine expert statement on sedentary office work, which advises desk-based staff to accumulate at least 2 hours a day of standing and light activity, progressing towards 4 hours. The plan keeps each stretch of standing and sitting inside the usual 60-minute posture-change guidance and shows the extra energy cost using the 0.15 kcal per minute difference measured in a 2018 meta-analysis.
Open Sit-Stand Ratio Planner on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Enter the values you already know.
Fine-tune the options to match your scenario.
Read the result and use it in your planning or reporting.
Locks seated call time in place and rotates only the hours you actually control.
Flags plans that fall short of 2 hours standing or that leave you seated over an hour at a stretch.
Produces real clock times you can paste into a calendar rather than a vague ratio.
There is no single proven ratio, but the 2015 BJSM expert statement recommends at least 2 hours of standing and light walking during an 8-hour working day, building up to 4 hours. On a 60-minute cycle that works out to roughly 15 minutes standing per hour to reach 2 hours, or 30 minutes per hour to reach 4 hours.
Aim for stretches of 20 to 40 minutes and change posture at least once an hour. Standing continuously beyond about an hour tends to increase lower-limb swelling and back discomfort, which is why this planner warns whenever a standing block runs past 60 minutes.
About 0.15 kcal per minute more, according to a 2018 systematic review and meta-analysis in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. Two hours of extra standing therefore adds roughly 18 kcal — real but small, so treat a standing desk as a way to break up sitting rather than as a weight-loss tool.
You can, but this planner assumes meeting time is seated because cameras, note-taking and shared desks often make standing impractical. If some calls can be taken standing or walking, subtract those hours from the seated meeting field and the rotation will loosen accordingly.