A more chilled out office vibe can really benefit everyone and create a more productive and more enjoyable office space. Here are five tips to help create it.
- Only Keep the Thing You Need On Your Desk; Nothing Else
This is a difficult but essential step when it comes to creating a relaxing environment. If you fill your desk with unnecessary projects and folders that don’t require our immediate attention, it is easy to become distracted and cause lack of focus.
Only keep items on your desk that are needed for what you’re presently working on. This is essential in creating attentional feng shui. This means that we have to design our space in a way that allows us to focus on our most important tasks.
Ideally, the only things on my desk are items that I’m currently working on. That means I need to be ruthless when it comes to determining my biggest priorities. This helps keep my adult ADD in check.
- Clear Out The Clutter
A walk into your workspace should not be followed by a sense of dread. Instead, it should feel inviting. You can’t expect to find relaxation in your workspace if it’s filled with files, receipts, piles of papers and miscellaneous junk. If you can only make one change to your workspace, it should be to get organized.
Clear the items off of your desk, except the things you need. This may mean filing (yes, the dreaded f-word) anything you don’t need. It also means keeping things you don’t need constantly in cabinets or drawers.
Use the in/out tray in your office to sort through your paperwork based on relevance and urgency. Create an action for each tray, such as “to be filed” or “needs research”. Consider how each item will be used and how often, then place the ones you need most frequently in a convenient location. Often, at the beginning of the day, your office can be the guide or rudder for your work day. Unfortunately, you can’t control everything, however, the least you can do is set the right tone by coming into an organized and clean space. Here are some good tips.
- Make Your Space Comfortable
One of the biggest buzz word in the office is ergonomics. That’s because after so many businesses have settled workers compensation suits for not being ergo friendly, many businesses are taking employee comfort more seriously. Although businesses may not have known they were doing something wrong, they now know how important ergonomics are.
Here are some of the basic ergonomic tips:
- Your feet need to be firmly planted on the floor.
- Adjust the arms of your chair so that they’re level with your keyboard.
- Any referenced documents should be placed near the keyboard in order to prevent repetitive neck movements.
- When using your mouse, relax your hands to prevent cramping.
- Do eye asanas to prevent your eyes from getting tired.
- Maintain proper posture.
- Keep your wrists straight and allow them to “float” above the keyboard.
- Adjust the contrast/brightness levels on your monitor.
- Place the monitor away from bright lights and window in order to prevent glare.
- Adjust the font size on the screen to make it more readable.
Businesses with relaxing spaces can truly be of benefit and a special area can help that. Quiet areas, where the sounds of nature can be heard are a true benefit. Think about creating spaces with natural colours, wall water fountains and plenty of natural light to gain these benefits.
- Listen to Music
Find out which types of music helps you work better. For repetitive work, I find a good eclectic mix is helpful. This helps get me through listening to voice messages, filing, and answering emails. “Radio Paradise” is my favorite station. You can find this mix on iTunes under Radio > Eclectic > Radio Paradise.
iTunes has many great stations to choose from. Do some exploring, to find music that works for you? When doing creative work that requires a high level of focus, I prefer strings. The Vitamin String Quartet is one of my favorites.
Stan Richardson, a Japanese bamboo flute artist is one of my favorites for my morning writing. Just look for the type of music that you enjoy while working.
- Personalize Your Workspace
When you personalize your desk space, it helps to remind us that there are things outside of work that’s important. Pictures of your loved ones can help you stay motivated and remember why they’re working. It makes us remember that we’re not working for the sake of work.
Our workspace should appeal to us. After all, we spend about one-third of our day working. Over the course of 40 or 50 years, that’s a significant amount of time.
Take a moment to consider what your ideal workspace should look like. What would make the space more inviting?
You can do simple things like adding living plants, photos, candles, fresh fruits and fresh flowers to your desk. The idea of adding live elements like fresh flowers and fresh fruit, along with recent family photos can help to invite a new energy to your life and work.
