There are a lot of great things that come from having a home office such as the freedom to decorate and design your office in any way that you want. Along with the good things that come with a home office, there are also a few bad like the fact that there are usually more distractions that come along with having an office at home rather than at work. The setup of your home office can and will affect your productivity and your mood. Just like a cluttered desk is a cluttered mind, a disorganized home office may be the source of unnecessary mind-blocks. Here are a few tips on home to improve the organization of your home office to turn it into a more productive workplace, while also keeping the working mood positive and getting back that focus you need to produce your best possible work.
Don’t mix business with pleasure. This is one of the most obvious things that can cause problems with your home office. The problem with having an office at home is that it is in your home, which makes it quite difficult to avoid mixing your work and personal life.
What to do: Check over your home office from time to time to make sure your home space hasn’t been infected with distractions. If it is, you need to clear away those distractions like your TV, game consoles, and other distractions and keep them out of your sight. Keep your workplace as distinct from every other room in your house as you can because such differentiation can have a psychological effect on how you divide work and pleasure.
Get a good chair. You may not think that comfort matters when it comes to your productivity, but it does. About 90% of adults experience back pain at some point in their life, and about 50% of that comes from work. When you don’t pay attention to how comfortable your back is, your desk chair can take a toll on your health, mood, and your work productivity.
What to do: Here is a guide on getting a chair that won’t hurt your back. If you are on a bit of a budget, consider getting seat support for your chair.
Invest in better lighting. Lighting is often something that we neglect in our space. Research has shown that people often feel lethargic during the winter months because of the lack of exposure they get to the sunlight. Exposure can both boost your mood and improve your sleep patterns. In times like these, where weather is unfavorable or nights with long working hours, it is important to get good lighting in your workspace.
What to do: Experiment with different lighting to find out which one works best for you. Try to get multiple lighting, and at least one desk lamp with direct exposure to your workplace to facilitate the reading, writing, or sketching of documents.
Keep your tech updated and reliable. If you are going to be working at home most of the time, you have to make sure that your technology isn’t causing you problems all the time. If you are having frequent issues with your computer, it may be a major source of frustration at work. There’s a good chance you are holding on to old devices just because they still work and you don’t need new ones, but you might want to consider how much time you have waster trying to fix problems with them. Don’t forget about the negative effect it has on your mood as well. System crashes and data loss near an important deadline can cause more damage than it is worth.
What to do: Update your antivirus on your computer and conduct regular maintenance checks so that you don’t have as many problems with your computer. Keep important information backed up to keep you from losing them.
Simplify processes. You might have complicated your home office and work more than you need to. So much so that it might become too overwhelming to actually get your work done. This might mean that it is time to return to the basics. Remember that a key element to an organized office is efficiency. The more things that you have around, the harder it is to keep everything in order. A workplace organized in a complex manner causes may seem like a good thing on the surface, but it might cause a lot of sorting and filing problems if there are too many categories.
What to do: Keep your office clean and as minimal as you can. When you are over-organized, you tend to procrastinate keeping your workspace clean because it is too time-consuming and takes too much effort. Eventually, you end up with a lot of clutter. This doesn’t just apply to the layout of your work area, but also the area on your computer.
Resources:
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/home-office-tips/
https://www.ontimesupplies.com/community/kb/furniture-guides/ergonomic-desk-chair-guide.html