Best Working Direction by Kua Number
The placement checklist tells you the structure. Your Kua number tells you the direction. Together they answer the question every desk owner actually has: which way should I point my chair? This guide takes the number you get from the Kua calculator and turns it into a desk you can set up this afternoon.
Your Kua Number in One Paragraph
Kua (sometimes spelled Gua) is a formula from the Eight Mansions school of feng shui. You feed in your birth year and gender and out comes a number from 1 to 9 (the number 5 is folded into 2 or 8 depending on gender). That number sorts you into one of two groups — East or West — and each group has four directions that are "good" for you and four that aren't. The best of the good ones is your Sheng Qi direction, and that's the one you want facing while you work. You don't need to memorize the math; the calculator does it. You need to know what to do with the result.
The 8 Directions, Ranked
Whatever your number, the eight compass directions break down the same way — one best, one worst, and six in between. Here's the universal ranking so you can place the desk even before you've run your own number.
| Direction | Quality | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| Sheng Qi (best) | Most auspicious | Face this way while working; your peak direction |
| Tian Yi | Good for health | Use if Sheng Qi is blocked |
| Yan Nian | Good for stability | Use for steady, long-focus work |
| Fu Wei | Good for personal growth | Use for learning, writing, study |
| Huo Hai | Mildly unfavorable | Rotate away if you can |
| Wu Gui | Unfavorable | Avoid facing |
| Liu Sha | Unfavorable | Avoid facing |
| Jue Ming (worst) | Most unfavorable | Never face this way |
You only ever need the top four. The bottom four are "don't point here" — useful mostly for ruling out a tempting but wrong layout.
East-Group vs West-Group at a Glance
Your number decides which four of the eight are "yours." It's a clean split, and this table is the whole thing.
| Group | Kua numbers | Your four good directions |
|---|---|---|
| East | 1, 3, 4, 9 (and 5→2 for women) | E, SE, S, N |
| West | 2, 6, 7, 8 (and 5→8 for men) | W, SW, NW, NE |
If your number is in the East row, your best working direction is one of East, Southeast, South, or North — with your personal Sheng Qi being the strongest of those four. If you're West, it's West, Southwest, Northwest, or Northeast. That's it. The calculator will name your exact Sheng Qi; this table tells you the field it lives in.
How to Apply It to Your Desk
"Facing a direction" means your chest points that way when you sit — the same way you'd say a sofa faces the TV. Three ways to use it:
| Approach | What you do | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Ideal | Desk faces your Sheng Qi direction, door in peripheral view | The full combo — direction plus command position |
| Back-to-wall | Face the wall; let the door fall to your side | Support at your back beats a perfect compass reading with no back |
| Corner angle | Angle the desk 30–45° toward your best available direction | Partial is fine; most rooms aren't built for the textbook layout |
The full structure rules live in the desk placement checklist — direction is the finishing layer, not the foundation.
If Your Room Won't Allow the Best Direction
Real rooms are stubborn. Your Sheng Qi might point straight into a closet, or the only window is exactly where you'd need to face. Don't force it. Drop to your second-best (Tian Yi), then Yan Nian, then Fu Wei — any of the four "good" directions works, just with a little less tailwind. The point is to face one of yours rather than one of the unfavorable four.
A practical note: once you rotate the desk to a new direction, your monitor height and chair angle shift too. Re-level the screen to your eyes and you'll keep the focus gain the direction gave you. And if the desk itself needs to rise or turn, a standing desk makes the switch a five-second job instead of a furniture move.