This post is all about How To Create A Productive Workspace At Home. Most people who work at home are probably at the point where they are fed up with their environment.
Your home environment should be inspiring and comforting, but when you work in a home office you need to remember that you are fighting the battle between being productive while also making sure that you are not falling asleep at your desk!
How To Create A Productive Workspace At Home
Having the flexibility as a mom to conduct business from the comfort of your own home can take a lot of stress out of your working day, but you need to make it a space that motivates you and doesn’t distract you. This means having some of the following in mind:
Embracing the Quirks
You might have worked with someone who had a very quirky desk setup. It might have annoyed you, but there’s a reason why they had these quirks because it made them feel unique in an office full of faceless people.
It’s so important for you to embrace your quirks within your office because it doesn’t just remind you that you can be unique in your home environment but it also reminds you not to take everything so seriously. This always helps to boost my work when I think like this!
You are very lucky that you get to spend time at home working and sometimes everybody can feel hemmed in by their surroundings, but this is why being a bit quirky and embracing those little items can make a big difference to your mindset.
A simple eyeglass holder that is shaped like a peacock or a cat is just a little thing that can give life to your bog-standard glasses holder.
Because your mindset is so important at home, the little quirks are crucial to reminding yourself of the unique aspects of yourself and how you can bring these to life in your home environment.
Investing in Comfort
Being comfortable is a double-edged sword when you are trying to work. You’ve got to figure out the best approach to keep you motivated.
When you are comfortable, it can switch off the part of your brain that keeps you motivated. But this is why you’ve got to only have one part of your room dedicated to comfort.
For many, it’s probably going to be an ergonomic office chair but if you are trying to be healthier you could invest in a customizable standing desk so you can stand up for most of the day when you’ve got the tasks that don’t require much effort towards the end of your working day, you could do this on a small couch where you can lay down and put some music on.
Comfort is a great part of working at home, but we cannot get too comfortable as we will not be productive in the slightest! But if you are someone who has back pain or persistent problems when you sit at a desk, you’ve got to make things a lot more comfortable.
Installing Inspiring Implements
The right materials can be incredibly inspiring when you’re trying to get stuff done. It’s important not to think of inspiration as a picture on a wall, but about being a wide variety of components that stimulate the senses.
You can have an image on the wall that stimulates you visually, but you can also aim to stimulate other parts of your senses, such as your sense of smell and your hearing.
Ultimately, it depends on what you need to achieve. Many people are able to increase their productivity by listening to classical music.
It’s been something that many schoolchildren have done when they are studying. And having music without any words can help you to lock in on the task at hand.
Other people choose binaural beats, as this can help you to stay focused when you are scatterbrained in your home office. You can also play with smell; there are a number of scents that can boost your productivity, including rosemary, jasmine, cinnamon, peppermint, and, of course, coffee.
When you are trying to get inspired through different senses, this is going to help you stay focused, especially when you have a lot of work ahead of you.
Make Sure You Light it Right
Lighting has a number of psychological effects, and if you spend time in an office with artificial light, after a while, you feel tired and sluggish. And during the winter when you don’t get to see much daylight at all, this could be very detrimental to your frame of mind.
Having your desk near a window is the most important part of getting some natural light but also make sure that, as soon as the sun comes up in the morning, you spend some time outside because this has a big impact on your circadian rhythm and sets you up for the day.
Likewise, you should spend a bit of time outside when the sun is going down because this sends a signal to your body that it’s time to unwind.
Of course, you need to make sure that you’re not using much in the way of devices at this time but if you’ve been staring at your computer screen all day in your office, this might be a lesson that you should just keep your devices on you while you work and no more.
And if you are trying to focus on your work but there isn’t much light, you can get an angled desk lamp complete with a dimmer switch so you can tailor it to your comfort.
You have to remember that eye strain is one of the big problems when you’re working at home because you could decide to power through your lunch break so you need to invest in things that can dim your screen where necessary.
But ultimately, one of the best ways to do this is just to get away from your desk for a little bit of time and spend some time outside!
Keeping Yourself Motivated: How To Create A Productive Workspace At Home
If you find that you are chained to your office desk, you will start to resent it. And while you might think that you don’t have enough time to complete all of your tasks, it’s important to remember Parkinson’s Law.
This is the expression that your work will expand to fill the time available. So if you give yourself a certain amount of time to complete a task, you will naturally work to that deadline. But one of the benefits of working at home is that you can do pretty much whatever you want!
If you know you’re not needed in meetings and you’ve just got a task to complete, you could set yourself the challenge of aiming to complete it two hours before you’re finished.
If you do this, this means that there are two hours spare at the end of your day to do (almost) whatever you want. If you can start to complete your work in a certain time frame, you are going to reap the benefits.
When we work in an office we feel like we have to be seen to be doing stuff, and when we actually complete the work this is wasted time where we could be doing something more productive.
But this is where we can keep ourselves motivated in other ways. You can use your home office environment as a miniature gym, for example.
The fact is that the home office doesn’t need to be dull and uninspiring. It’s part of your home and you might want to shut it away at the end of your working day, but if you can make it as inspiring to you as possible and actually help you to work through some of those issues that were common in the office environment, you can nail the act of working from home forever.
Let me know how you liked my post about How To Create A Productive Workspace At Home. Feel free to add your tips in the comments below! Yay!