Many people these days are working from home. Whether they've set up their home offices in their bedrooms, their dining rooms, their living rooms, or they have a separate room dedicated to that purpose; the point is that most aren't heading into a corporate office anymore.
Workflows have changed, and people working from home need help to stay focused, productive, and efficient. After all, the home environment can be incredibly distracting. That's especially true since many home offices don't look like offices, and then there are kids and pets that might be keeping you company and placing demands upon your attention and time.
With all the interruptions and disturbances that could occur, it's a good idea to maximize your ability to get work done and to be able to enjoy the time spent doing it. An excellent way to do that is to take stock of the workspace you've chosen as a home office and then make changes that will positively impact your efforts.
That said, we've got five tips for improving your home office environment that can help you do great things with the space you have, whether it's a designated space or one you're creating on the fly!
Bring Nature To You
What could possibly be better than bringing a bit of greenery into your home? Actually, not much since studies have shown that plants and a sense of nature are incredibly vital to the human species' mental health and sense of wellbeing.
Indeed, one particular study published in the journal Ecological Implications noted that "the frequency of greenspace use and the existence of green window views from within the home was associated with increased levels of self‐esteem, life satisfaction, and subjective happiness and decreased levels of depression, anxiety, and loneliness."
Adding fresh, healthy plants to your home office is as simple as going online. You can find many different plant nurseries that will deliver straight to your doorstep! Keeping the research in mind, you could transform your entire workspace into an oasis of indoor ornamental plants and flowers.
However, you don't have to take things to the extreme if you don't wish to. Getting a few plants and placing them strategically in your home office can equally help to reduce stress and boost your mood.
Ensure Great Lighting
You might not realize it, but one of the main ingredients of a well-thought-out home office is a healthy dose of natural light (or light that can mimic it). As noted above, when you can see the outdoors through windows, it can profoundly affect your mental state. It can improve everything from your overall sense of wellbeing to your sleep cycle to how productive you are.
To create the best possible workspace, the ideal is to choose an area with a lot of window space. Some of the best offices face south and have floor to ceiling windows and glass doors. Windows that face south will see the most hours of sunlight throughout the day.
Remember that it doesn't just help your mental state when you get a healthy amount of sunlight. It also helps your skin to produce vitamin D, which is needed to help keep your bones, teeth, and muscles healthy.
Finally, if your workspace is mostly enclosed and you don't have many windows, you'll want to get yourself some desk and floor lamps and purchase bulbs that have a temperature that mimics sunlight. Don't let yourself languish under harsh and unnatural light, such as that put out by fluorescent bulbs.
Keep Your Workspace Clean and Separate
This tip is more like … a bit of friendly advice. After all, it's pretty likely that your home office has a lot more clutter than any corporate office would. You probably bring snacks and drinks into your space and leave them on your desk or table. You might even have jars of peanut butter and a few stacked plates on the corner.
Your kid's toys might be littering the floor, a G.I. Joe with a Kung-Fu grip might be taped to the leg of your desk (hey, your child said he was calling Mt. Everest in a desperate attempt to stop Cobra Commander), and maybe you've also got bills stacked and post-its scattered here and there.
Now, there's absolutely nothing wrong with any of those things in and of themselves. However, studies have shown that clutter creates a sense of anxiety. For instance, a study by experts at Cornell University stated that "housing quality (which includes privacy and cleanliness/clutter) is associated with psychological distress …"
You need a home office environment that influences your behavior, emotions, decision-making ability, and cognition in a favorable manner. That's why you should ensure that your office space is kept entirely separate from your living areas. It's essential to make sure that clutter is kept to a minimum and that you don't allow things to pile up.
Keep Office Hours
Another thing that can help your overall productivity is to make sure that when you work, you do so during the same office hours you would in your company's office building. Having a set routine gives your day structure and allows you to go back to "living in your house" when the workday is finished.
Use a FlexiSpot Comhar All-in-One Standing Desk
One of the best ways we've found to improve your home office environment is to vary the way in which you get your work done! Sitting all day can dampen the mood as well as damage your posture. So, why not change up things a bit and do some work standing up?
You can smoothly transition between sitting and standing, boost your productivity, and stretch your legs at the same time by using a FlexiSpot Comhar All-in-One Standing Desk (FlexiSpot EG8). It's sturdy and can handle plenty of wear and tear. You won't have to worry about rowdy kids breaking it. (You still might want to be careful with the glass top, though.)
Outside of its ease of use and sturdy nature, the FlexiSpot EG8 looks great and can fit well with many different home office designs.
Programmable Height Presets
One of the best things about the FlexiSpot Comhar All-in-One Standing Desk is the fact that you can customize its height. In other words, if you need to share your desk with someone in your family, there are four programmable presets so you can adjust the desk's height as appropriate.
Fits Into A Small Space
Most people don't have the luxury of a large, spacious home office. Indeed, many make do with the space available to them, which might mean improvising and making a makeshift office in the corner of the living room or spare bedroom. However, that isn't a problem because the FlexiSpot EG8 is specifically designed to take up minimal floor space.
Set it up in a corner, a little nook, or against the wall, and you're good to go.
Tempered Glass Table Top
Sometimes you just need a break, and that's where the FlexiSpot EG8's glass tabletop can come into play. You see, you can get your kids (or partner) and use its surface as a platform for various games, such as mini shuffleboard.
That's not actually the best part about it, though. Because the glass tabletop is extremely simple to make spotless, it'll just be that much easier to keep your home office environment neat and clean. Plus, you might be surprised at how much bigger your office seems to be since glass table tops help create a feeling of more space.
1 Type C & 2 Type A USB charging ports
Remember how clutter can lead to anxiety? Think about how irksome it can be to have a bunch of computer cords lying tangled behind or under your desk. The FlexiSpot Comhar All-in-One Standing Desk eliminates that annoyance entirely by including a 1 Type C & 2 Type A USB charging ports into its design.
You can keep most modern electronic devices powered throughout the day without the need for extra power strips while keeping all the cables nice and tidy.
Improving Your Home Office Environment
The truth is, there are a lot of benefits to making small, incremental improvements to your home office space.
Bringing in some (or a lot) of plants, ensuring that you've got plenty of natural light, separating your living space from where you do business, and working the same hours you normally would in a corporate office building can all do wonders for your mental state and overall productivity.
Don't forget the many advantages of adding in a Flexispot standing desk, though. For example, not only have studies published in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine shown that you can boost productivity, but you can enhance your health by lowering your risk of heart disease too!
Ultimately, your home office environment needs to be an aesthetically pleasing, neat, and tidy place where you can do the work that must be done with a minimum of stress. The FlexiSpot Comhar All-in-One Standing Desk helps get you there.
