Photo by Ken Tomita from Pexels
Modern workspaces or offices are designed in a way to keep distractions to a minimum and encourage productivity.
That’s exactly what some of our home offices lack. As some continue to work from their houses and practice social distancing, they encounter more distractions and lack general motivation or productiveness.
Here are 5 top tips for setting up the perfect home office that will boost your performance and still feel like it’s a space that belongs only to you and your needs.
1. Choose a space with good lightning
When deciding where to set up your home office, look for a location with plenty of natural light.
According to Carnegie Mellon University research, higher illumination levels and sunshine imitating lights can boost productivity.
This can help you stay awake and attentive throughout the day, as well as reduce the strain on your eyes from gazing at a computer screen or notes all day.
Windows facing south, for example, provide abundant sunlight, which is especially helpful during the winter months.
2. Add your personal touch
After a year and a half in isolation, working from our homes, we could all benefit from a motivation boost.
The good thing is that, unlike traditional workspaces with bland furniture and stale meeting rooms, you can add your personal touch to your home office to make it as aesthetic and motivating as you want.
However, remember the primary purpose of the room. As much as you want it to look good as the background of your zoom call, you still want the space to function properly, answer your work needs without much hassle, and keep you motivated.
3. Make sure you’re comfortable but not too cozy
At the start of the pandemic, we all plopped down on our living rooms couches or attended meetings from the comfort of our beds, making our makeshift “workspaces” as cozy and low effort as possible. And we can all agree that it was awesome.
Now, after a while, working from home seems like the new normal rather than the few-week alternative we first thought we were getting; and as time goes on, more and more people find not having a dedicated space for work quite distracting.
Whether you want to invest in more comfortable and newer office chairs or a standing desk, make sure you’re comfortable enough to be motivated and productive during work hours. Reserve the coziness for your break times and after work hours to keep distractions to the minimum.
4. Declutter your space
Take a look around your desk and room. How often do you really use the hole punch that’s been sitting on your desk for months? Make an effort to declutter your space from all the things you don’t normally use, and you’ll see how much easier concentrating on your tasks can be.
The state of a room is a representation of your mental. So the cleaner it is, the fewer distractions you’ll face during work.
5. Take regular breaks
It’s important to ease the strain on your eyes and take a break to refresh every 45-60 minutes.
Go around the room, walk to stretch, or make yourself a cup of coffee or tea.
Also, set aside a specific time for lunch or an afternoon break so that your brain can recharge and focus better after a few hours of hard work.
