Choosing the best location for your home office is as important as the way you set up your work from home schedule.
The environment we work in influences our performance and comfort. Trying out different places in your home to see what feels right might be an experiment worth trying. Or is it?
Choosing to work from the living room
Working from the living room might seem the easiest way to get your workload completed. Just you and your laptop, together on the living room sofa or an armchair you find comfortable. That might look like the freedom of working from home embodied, but for how long?
This default mode of working from your laptop takes its toll over the long run. Adjusting the position you work in every now and then might feel fine at first, but think about days and days of working from positions that do not support your body and only interrupt your workflow.
Choosing to work from the kitchen
Your laptop is built to be taken anywhere and gives you the freedom to work remotely. But that does not mean it’s prudent to do so. When you chose to set up a home office in the kitchen it’s usually a temporary setup. Most people work from their kitchen table.
That might look like a good idea at first, yet you still have to pack up your temporary home office when it comes time to eat. Even if you have a good chair to sit on and you take breaks to move around, your mind will still be semi-focused on work tasks because it can easily wander over to the plates left in the kitchen sink or the oven you might have food cooking in.
Choosing to work from the bedroom
This might sound like a good idea. But you already know that unless space is set up for optimal work performance, it will only support you for a little while.
Using your bed as a working space might work wonderfully when you’re traveling but working daily from your bed is less comfortable for your body and your mind if done permanently.
Creating a designated place for your home office setup
Maybe you have a corner of your home that you could transform into a home office space. This gives you the freedom to fabricate a whole new environment that helps you focus better on your work tasks.
Even a mini desk is better than working from a random place because it teaches your brain that once you sit down for work, there should be no interruptions.
A setup in which your mind knows there is nothing else to do but work can become one of the triggers to get you into the flow – a state that dramatically enhances performance. Find out more about this unparalleled focusing tool in psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book “Flow”.
Unfortunately, there are many reasons why you can’t dedicate a space for your home office and have to work either from the living room sofa, kitchen table, or even the bed. Then the only solution is to find out how to create a home office routine that sticks.