Maximizing Productivity and Comfort Outside the Office
Designing the right space for working remotely gives you the freedom and flexibility to get better work done more efficiently.
Working remotely offers a plethora of both physical and mental health benefits, including reduced stress, which explains why young professionals often opt to use technology from the comfort of their living rooms to communicate while working.
If working from home feels like a luxury, learn how to make comfortable space within your work environment so time flies by between nine and five and your happiness stays high.
We all know the same story…
Gathered around making coffee in the office kitchen each morning, we rub our eyes and begin the day talking about how stressed and tired we feel. The classic watercooler effect. We complain about the traffic to and from the office because our heads hurt listening to angry car horns blaring during rush hour, and for good reason. Our backs hurt from slouching at our desks, despite our ergonomically correct chairs; and our eyes hurt from squinting at our computer screens from nine to five.
If we all know the same story, why do we tell it, over and over?
As young professionals, constantly plagued by the stress of an unmanageable amount of tasks plopped onto our plates as we walk through the office doors in the morning, we bear an immense amount of stress. Eventually, our productivity at work declines because of stress, despite being in a focused work environment.
So, how do we break this cycle of stress?
Young professionals started bringing their office home with them. By creating space to breathe and to focus within the comfort of their own homes, CEOs of successful tech-driven startup design agencies find an ideal balance between work and play.
The Science of Staying Home
Some workforces exist entirely remote, with all communication done via Slack, email, or another communication app. In reality, agencies with a brick and mortar location still carry out a majority of their daily back-and-forth by direct messaging, between colleagues at a shared desk space, only a giant monitor and a tiny potted succulent blocking their views of one another.
Working from home proves to be entirely possible in our tech-infused industry, allowing our professionals added freedom and flexibility, so that they work when they have to, but also when they want to.
Studies show workers with more flexibility in their schedule and control of their hours express less worry over small frustrations, such as traffic. So, if employers incorporated two to three days of WFH during the regular work week, the stress brought through the office door for days “on call” would likely decrease significantly, promoting a healthier and happier workspace.
Additional research reveals that employees who spend 60–80% of their time working out of the office also experience the highest levels of engagement. WFH most drastically increases productivity, whether on a plane or in a coffee shop, and also promotes organic networking and employee retention, given the greater sense of autonomy and resulting job satisfaction WFH offers busy young professionals.
WFH (n.)
What does it mean?
A date with your company laptop and your favorite TV show? Lounging on the couch in your pajamas as you answer emails? Even better.
WFH helps ensure you reach your maximum level of productivity. How? By allowing you to create an office space that is uniquely yours, designed to enhance your focus and detox your mind of those little daily frustrations stressing you out.
The catch? You have to do it right.
Creating space to maximize productivity both inside and outside the office takes focus and careful planning to organize necessary work items alongside inspirational thought-pieces that boost brainpower and creativity.
Here, I’ll discuss a few tips and tricks to designing the most efficient and effective workspace in your living room from my own perspective as someone just entering this WFH world for the first time.
Little did I know my marketing internship at Handsome would send me running to the coffee shop a block over, not to pick up espressos for my boss and his boss, but instead, to get my own work done remotely.
Creating a Productive Space
1. Find your quiet place.
Although WFH adds flexibility between time dedicated to working and time spent with family, it is important that the line separating work and home life is not completely blurred. To create an ideal work environment, working behind a closed door or on a separate floor of your home helps to minimize family distractions. If a completely severed space within the home proves to be an impossibility, creating focused office space with a screen or even a sort of psychological divide does the trick to promoting productivity during work hours.
Since WFH may induce feelings of isolation from coworkers, depending on the frequency of remote working days per week, it is important to continue feeling connected within your home workspace. Knowing you can easily cross over the boundary between work and home life helps alleviate any stress that comes with temporary detachment from your work community. So, it is important to find the right balance between the separation of the workspace within the home and feeling comfortable and available to family needs.
2. Inspire yourself.
Pictures of family and friends inspire creativity and help maintain calmness when placed in a home workspace. Items associated with bright feelings and happy memories, like photographs, nurture a positive mindset, helping further rid your mind of those small frustrations. Yet, placing these pictures in a direct line of sight while working may further hinder focus rather than foster productivity. Instead, placing personal pictures off to the side limits distractions while working and offers relaxation when taking a break. Turning around in your desk chair after answering a slew of morning emails to see your precious family smiling at you from their place on the wall behind you may help you keep smiling throughout the rest of your WFH day, too.
Psychologist and designer, Constance Forrest, suggests that, “You want to create a setting that’s going to trigger or contribute to the feeling and state that are optimal for you to be doing your work,” in order to make a productive home office space ideal for you.
When designing your space, focus on what inspires you, without having to tailor to the needs of your coworkers. Expansive images of landscape scenes, like waves or mountain sunsets, help drive your desire for overcoming challenges, achieving great success, and feeling deserving of a little relaxation at the end of the day. Quotes from leaders who inspire you or books whose authors or messages resonate with you act as reminders to stay positive and continue working hard for your passion. Place inspirational objects like these in front of you on your desk so that they continuously feed your creativity throughout your workday.
3. Let in a little light.
To begin creating your home workspace, start with a clean slate. Then, add sunlight. Natural sunlight will help wake you up and keep you focused, your eyes less tired, and your back a little straighter. Voilà. You have an optimal workspace. Sunlight boosts brain power, maintains your biological clock, and keeps you happier by releasing endorphins. After a productive workday with the sun shining in, you’ll also sleep better; then, you can tackle the next morning bright and early, especially if you have to go into the office.
4. Put your green thumb to work, too.
Like sunlight, potted plants easily create a healthy and focused work environment within the home and office. To ensure productivity, place plants behind you, so that they do not distract while you complete tasks, but they help you de-stress after you finish your work, a concept similar to strategically placing family photos around your workspace.
According to a study carried out by researchers at Texas A&M University, placing plants around the workplace significantly improves creativity, cognition, and problem-solving skills. Simply put, keeping plants around your workspace helps boost your daily work ethic, so you can impress and convince your boss to give you that extra WFH day each week.
Plants also work as a natural air purifier, helping to keep the quality of air in the office and at home high and healthy. Healthier air contributes to healthier bodies, which means less sick days and more time spent getting work done. So, keeping plants in the home office is surely a win-win for both your immune system and your mental productivity.
5. Work smart.
Even though you WFH does not mean you should throw away all the good work that ergonomically correct chair at your office desk has done for your back and lounge on the couch instead. For your home office, you should find something similarly supportive of both your posture and your productivity. Sitting upright and pretty helps you remain focused and feeling better in the long run.
The benefit of “working smart” for your body proves to be not solely physical, but equally positive for your mental health. Weighing tasks and organizing work in order of importance, rather than overcommitting unnecessarily each day to completing tasks due far down the road, relieves stress.
An Alternative Solution
So, what if your home life does not allow for peace and quiet, a private workspace seems to be a luxury, or working remotely would hurt your face-to-face based operation?
As a young professional myself, fresh out of college, I still experience the small nervous fear of asking my boss or his boss for a morning WFH. At the same time, I feel stressed each morning as I attempt to beat the crazy Austin traffic to the office.
I’m an avid coffee shop and old bookstore or library worker and always have been while in college. It’s the feeling of being connected with others present in these spaces, but collectively quiet and focused on whatever work we all came to do. It’s the smell of coffee and newspapers and yellowed pages and the sunlight filtering in to mix with the warm lamp lighting draws me to these comfortable places.
…or maybe it’s the fact that I’m an English major. Who knows?
Anyway, now that I’ve entered the tech-heavy, modern world of marketing for an innovative design company, I’ve found a new go-to coffee shop and left the library for the bright, comfortable space that is the Handsome office. The best part? Fresh air, and lots and lots of plants. Despite my love for old books, their pages are best left for reading, but not breathing.
So, I often choose to work in the Handsome office, despite having the opportunity to WFH as needed, and walk down the street to my relaxed coffee haven when I need a change of pace. Here at Handsome, I am able to maximize my productivity within wonderful little areas where I can find solace from distractions and a good balance between comfort and maximizing creativity.
These tips for creating an optimal workspace at home easily transfer to any office space like ours as well. With a desk, an ergonomically-correct chair, a little sunlight and a few potted succulents, your productivity increases anywhere you work. Even being around hundreds of other coworkers, in and out of meetings, you will feel happier and healthier in both mind and body by employing these tactics.
At Handsome, we sit both divided and connected at our desks, so to ensure our personal space and ability to zone into our work, as well as our accessibility to one another. Potted plants hang from the ceiling of the open floor plan, in order to limit distractions while we focus on our work at eye level. Then, when we take a stretch break, we look up to the greenery and vaulted ceilings, which promote relaxation and creativity. At my desk, despite my bad slouching habits, my desk chair supports my back so I feel comfortable typing away at my laptop. The bright midday Texas sunshine beaming through the wall-to-wall windows balances the room, giving designers, squinting at their screens as they perfect products and deliverables, a break from the harsh artificial light of their monitors.
For others at Handsome who do choose to WFH, they do so because of an awareness of their optimal space for productivity. With a strong company culture and a shared passion for our craft, working remotely provides the freedom to tend to each of our needs uniquely in a way that fosters the most focus and creativity, without jeopardizing our community or our individual comfort.
