Style your workspace for connection and creativity

Designers Sue Fan and Danielle Quigley on how to create a calmer and more productive home workspace

Often we don’t have the luxury of a dedicated room when it comes to working from home — especially with little or no notice! The reality is that our ‘home office’ doubles as a guest room, play area or storage space. Regardless, it still needs to encourage productivity. The goal is to find the balance where the room can have multiple uses if necessary, but still allow us to get work done.

Key to this is organisation. Firstly, find a space with natural light, calm colours and — most importantly — quiet. If the room is multipurpose, then create a work space near to the window, and close to a plug socket to charge all your gadgets. Give yourself plenty of storage options for paperwork: baskets, boxes, crates, shelves. You’ll be sitting down for potentially long periods so your priority is a desk for your computer and a chair that is comfortable, sturdy and the right height for your desk.

Then think about the spaces around the desk. Can you spread out if you need to? Perhaps there is an option for a pull-out from the desk to create an additional work surface. Or a chest of drawers with a large surface area on top to spread out paperwork. Use your wall space too. Hang a calendar, add a bookshelf, have a wall that doubles as a mood board — and whatever else may entice you to look up every couple of hours from the computer screen to inspire rather than distract you.

Be mindful that this room more than any is where we administrate our lives, so is prone to clutter. And as it just keeps coming, you need to have a system that allows you to quickly and easily deal with it or dispose of it.

Clutter isn’t only distracting on our desk, but in our minds. A Princeton University Neuroscience Institute study found people with cluttered homes experience greater exhaustion and stress. The chaos restricts your ability to focus and limits your brain’s ability to process information. The awareness of clutter wears down your mental state, which leads to frustration and poor decision-making.

We all do it. Piles of receipts, books we haven’t read, things we’ve collected but just can’t get rid of because of some attachment we can’t shake. As the digital world continues to expand, we are now not only fighting clutter with physical objects, but digital ones as well. Notifications, emails, text messages … the more our brain has to filter, the less effective it is for doing.

Clutter — and our threshold for it — means something different for everyone, but do yourself a favour and keep your workspace (and life) as clear and clutter-free as reasonably possible.

Try these simple solutions to keep things from piling up:

1. Organise your emails and computer desktop daily

Set aside a specific time to check email. Unless you have a job that requires you to be on call at every moment, you’ll be far more productive and focused if you fix a set amount of time (e.g. first thing in the morning, after lunch, before the end of the day) to sort, organise and respond to emails. In almost all mailboxes, there are options to colour-code or prioritise or filter email into folders. Take the time to unsubscribe from junk mail, move emails into a folder that will need eventual responses, and respond to urgent requests. Set an automatic response if you would prefer only to check (and be expected to respond) once a day.

Just like your email, at the end of your workday, it is a great idea to sort through your computer and make sure you delete unnecessary files, move everything into specific folders and complete a backup of the work you did that day.

2. Create a daily and weekly timeline

Setting a loose (or tight) schedule is a great way to increase productivity. What are your tasks for the day? Do you have important deadlines to hit? It’s important to keep an updated calendar. Choose a planner or calendar that works for you (digital or paper). Do you need something portable, where you can jot ideas and reminders down? If it’s digital, do you want notifications and for it to merge lists, tasks and appointments? Do you want a wall or desk calendar you can constantly look at? Whatever you do, be fair to yourself and make sure your timeline targets are realistic.

3. Use small storage spaces

Consuming less is always helpful. Try to take the time to put things away into their respective places. Have a receipt box, a paperwork box, an office supplies box. Be creative here by using well-designed boxes or wooden drawers as storage. Decide what you need to have to hand and find clever places to keep everything organised (paper clips, colour-coded folders, wire baskets, file boxes).

4. Leave things tidy

A few minutes spent tidying at the end of the day will pay dividends. If you take the time to clean up before you leave, it will be a more welcoming and productive space to walk into the next day. This goes hand in hand with the previous three solutions. The key is to be mindful of a mess (this applies to all aspects of life).

When you’re working from home, it’s especially important to have somewhere quiet to go and unplug.

We begin and end our day in the bedroom. We spend about a third of our lives there. So this room requires some attention. You must find a balance between creating a sanctuary for effortless mornings and soothing evenings. Colours should be somewhat muted, artwork should not be too bold. It’s best if you can keep technology — especially televisions — outside your bedroom. Rely on Feng Shui basics. Determine an element (fire, earth, metal, water, wood) and let that guide the colour scheme and energy of the room.

To create a serene space, lighting is a key factor. Your bedroom should have a light you can read by, preferably one where you can have the bulb not facing you that can also dim or at least turn on and off easily. If possible, angle overhead lighting away from the bed. If you are tight for space on your nightstand, hang or use wall-mounted lighting as an alternative.

Make space for morning meditation (even if that’s just a deep breath and a morning stretch), and place a dressing gown or sweater by your bedside so your excuse for staying under the covers is lessened. Make your bed as soon as you get up — when our rooms are tidy, our day can start off less hectic and with more intention. New York Times best-selling author of The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin, says that making your bed is one of the simplest habits you can adopt to effectively boost happiness. By accomplishing this task first thing in the morning, you set the tone for the entire day. A National Sleep Foundation poll also found survey participants who reportedly made their beds were more likely to say they got a good night’s sleep. Small actions, like details, can make a big difference.

Just as you design your bedroom for mornings, you will need to design it for evenings. It’s a fine balance. There is a tone to set for the ritual of sleep. Take care to have all the things that make a bedroom comfortable within arm’s reach. Keep slippers next to your bed, tissues nearby in a wooden box and a carafe of water on your bedside table (this can be something as simple as an old gin bottle), along with a good pile of books and maybe even a journal (try Keel’s Simple Diary and One Line a Day 5 Year Diary). Keep essential oil in a vintage glass bottle (apply bergamot on the bottom of your feet before bed for a better night’s sleep). Make it a space that grounds you.

Linen and bedding are obviously an essential part of the bedroom, but it pays to experiment with different types of pillows (buckwheat is hypoallergenic and often grown organically). Choose sheets made from a material like linen that will keep you cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Bedding is one of our greatest indulgences. Finding a great duvet with just the right amount of fluff and then trying different covers can be a dramatic and affordable way to change the whole feel of a room. Don’t underestimate the impact of throw cushions and adding a blanket at the end of the bed. Choose an unexpected colour or pattern; make sure it’s comfortable and comforting.

The bedroom is a room where you want to induce serenity. This is a room where you can use darker colours to make it feel more intimate. Take advantage of different textures and warmer textiles. Keep artwork to a minimum to reduce stimulation. Let this be a room for peace and rejuvenation. Greenery in the bedroom can purify the air and make the room feel fresh: spider plant, dracaena, ficus, snake plant, peace lily, aloe vera and bamboo palm are among the best air purifiers. This should be the calmest room in your home.

A Place for Everything

If your house is filled to the brim with stuff, it will feel overwhelming. Things need their place. If there is no place for it, assess if it’s something you actually need. It’s worth going through your belongings each season and deciding if unnecessary things are taking up valuable space. Take one room at a time and consider each item in it and its worth. Ask yourself if it’s useful, meaningful or if it simply makes you happy.

It’s all too easy to throw something into a drawer and never think about it again. We have drawers with junk, but it’s organised junk. And we like to think it’s not actually junk. Use small boxes and jars in your drawers to organise items that get collected over time (rubber bands, paper clips, pens, stamps, push pins, batteries, cords) and keep them in their designated places. Keep things you use all the time or emergency items handy — a pad of paper and pen on the counter, a small attractive metal box that sits by a door with screwdrivers, flashlights and matches.

As for storage, it’s all about baskets. The wide range in price and size are what make these the most useful storage solution in any home. You can find them in cardboard, fabric, metal, wood, sea grass, in any assortment of colours and patterns. They are amazing ways to clean up a shelf, a closet, a side table or a corner. They are attractive side by side or on their own, old or new, and can be constantly repurposed for another space or use.

Your stuff doesn’t define you, but it can easily take over. Storage and keeping your spaces clutter-free will always be a continuous battle. Be gracious with yourself for being human. Having your space feel perfect is one thing. Having it actually be perfect is something else entirely. Let’s focus on feeling.

Sue Fan and Danielle Quigley are the co-founders of Wild Habit, an interior design company based in New York and Southern California. Together they have created installations for large corporations, restaurants, studios, and homes. They have styled for the Do Lectures Wales and USA, and continue to run their Wild Habit store in Oceanside, California.

Extract from Do Inhabit: Style your space for a creative and considered life by Sue Fan and Danielle Quigley. Copyright © 2018 Sue Fan, Danielle Quigley. Published by The Do Book Co.

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