More and more people are beginning to see the advantages of having a home office. Whether you use yours on a regular basis or you only need to work from there part time, ensuring that it’s as productive a space as possible is important. If there are any distractions or it’s uncomfortable in any way, then the work you do is not going to be to a high standard. Read on to find out what you can do to make your home office more productive.
Add Plants
Working outside when the weather is good might seem like the ideal way to get things done. The problem is, it’s not. Working outside is actually extremely problematic; the sun makes it hard to see your screen, you might get dehydrated or sunburned, and there are wasps and other insects to think about. It’s usually best to keep your office indoors.
However, that’s not to say that you can’t bring a little of the outside in. By adding home office plants to your room, you can have that touch of greenery without the other problems that outside working brings with it. This means you can be a lot more productive and get the best of both worlds.
As an added benefit, plants make your home office more healthy as they purify the air of toxins; this is another way they can help you be more productive.
Natural Light
Because many homes were not built to be worked from, trying to squeeze in an office now that you need one there can be hard. If you have a spare bedroom, that is ideal, and if you have the budget, you might even consider a garden pod to work from. However, if your home is already at full capacity, you might find that your home office has to be a converted cupboard space or the corner of another room.
When this happens, natural light can easily be missing. This is a problem, since a lack of natural light can cause lower productivity. It can also be harmful to your health, since it can cause eye strain and other issues.
The best thing you can do is to allow as much natural light into your home office as possible, ensuring better productivity. If you can’t have a window or skylight, look for a lamp that mimics daylight. It’s not as good as the real thing, but it’s close and it will help.
Watch The Temperature
Your body is an amazing thing; it knows – thanks to its circadian rhythm – when it’s time to wake, sleep, eat, and anything else it might need to do. Unfortunately, the circadian rhythm is also rather delicate, and many things can throw it off course. Not having enough natural sunlight is one of them, for example.
Another reason the circadian rhythm can be affected is temperature. If a room is too cold, the body might assume that the sun has set, and therefore that it’s getting closer to sleep time, thus the body will start to feel tired, and less work will be done. If the office is too hot, the brain might send signals to the body that there is danger, and energy will be diverted to your organs as a way to save the body as much as possible; this will make you feel tired too, and again, you don’t do much work.
It’s best to keep your home office between 20 and 25 degrees celsius for the best working conditions.
