How to Design Your Office for Maximum Productivity
Whether you have your own business or work from a home office, you absolutely should not neglect your office space. We’ve narrowed down some very helpful tips on how to improve your office with productivity in mind.
The first and arguably most important action you can take is to improve the lighting. Poor lighting is linked to all kinds of health issues, like headaches, eyestrain, stress, and fatigue. The best remedy for this is to Increase natural lighting as much as possible. If you’re looking for a place to put your home office ideally the best space would be a room with a window. Use lamps that distribute the light evenly across the room rather than having both well-lit and dark areas.
You should definitely utilize your wall space. Put up shelves to help keep your desk tidy, and put artwork on the walls to make the room more inviting and less empty. Things on the walls will also help to reduce echo and insulate the space somewhat from noise. Also, consider adding plants to your workspace. Be mindful about which plants make sense for the space, if the room gets a lot of sunlight then a large plant might work, but if the room doesn’t get much sun then maybe a little plant will be more practical. Just a helpful tip: when you get a plant don’t throw out the little tag that comes with it that gives advice on care, some plants may need more or less watering than you’re accustomed to. It’s much better to water the right amount rather than too much or not enough.
Paint the walls of your office in calm, neutral colors. Blues, greens, greys, and tans are the best way to go because they’re easy to match with other decorations, are linked to encouraging creativity and productivity, and are relaxing for most people. We recommend against painting your walls white, yellow, or extremely dark shades of any color.
While the open design for offices has been trendy for the last few decades, more and more studies have shown that employees have lower satisfaction and productivity, and higher stress and fatigue when working in such spaces. Now, many companies are switching over to a design strategy that leverages using unique spaces for different activities, such as a separate space for a small team, and cozy spaces for solo work that requires quiet concentration. There should be a space just for taking a break and having conversations with coworkers, and each worker should have their own personal space.
Next, do everything you can to decrease clutter. It’s great to have pictures of family and friends, and maybe a notepad on the desk surface, but most things like staplers, paperclips, scissors, post-it notes, etc should go in drawers or into cubbies. Pencils and pens should be kept in a cup or holder, not scattered around everywhere. Books should go on shelves, not piled up. Paperwork that you’re not currently working on should be kept in organized files, and you should not let your documents get mixed up with each other.
You spend a lot of time in your office and even if you’re the only one that goes in there, that’s no excuse to leave it undecorated and unorganized. Spend some time to make your workspace more comfortable and productive.