Fixing the Home Office – Before or After You Move!

If you can’t do what you consider a good job at your job in your home office, you’ll be miserable.

So what do you need to do?

• The same self-identity mentioned in the other article in this month’s feature, is bruised when you don’t feel that you’re doing your job well.
• The colours of the walls in your office should be not very saturated and on the bright side. The goal is a palette that doesn’t put you to sleep but one that helps you maintain your focus on the task-at-hand. Greens are good colours for offices because looking at them has been tied to enhanced creative thinking, and for most of our jobs a little creativity from time to time is quite handy.

• In your home office, make sure that you can vary the light in the space. Overhead, cooler light (and you can change the colour temperature just enough by using light bulbs from packages marked “warm” or “cool”) and table top warm light will feel natural; turning on those cooler lights and off the warmer ones will help with concentration and the reverse is true for creativity or having a friendly chat with a co-worker. Installing those overhead lights is important, and a little more complex than painting walls, but not as fundamental a change as putting those walls in to start with, so we’re mentioning it in this article.
• Adding natural materials, such as wooden furniture or flooring with visible grain can make you feel just a little more comfortable and boost your performance. Moderation is key, it’s best if no more than about 45% of surfaces should have visible wood grain.

• Seeing nature while working is very important, whether that nature is inside or outdoors, in art or photographs or actually present. If you control the area outside your office window, make sure that at least a few green leafy plants are in view, even if only in a window box, and that there’s a water feature that’s gently burbling along in view, if possible.  Inside, adding images of nature, particularly those featuring meadows and trees and streams on lovely spring days is a big plus.

• A couple of green leafy plants in view at any one time (a few inches to a few feet tall will do) as you work is desirable; installing grow lights can make your plant companions healthier. Read more about Biophilic Design on The Space Doctors.

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• While you’re painting, try to preserve the mobility of your windows; don’t paint them shut! Fresh, moving air is great for your mind and the positive effects of clean outside air gets a boost if it carries indoors the sounds of birds visiting plants outside. If it also brings in the sound of a gently moving water feature you’ve installed or wind rustling plants, that would be a bonus, even if those plants are in pots!

And Finally….

• Make sure that the ergonomics in your office are right, adjust the height of your desk and desk chair until the way that your back and neck feel as you work is something that you don’t ever think about.