04 Feb How to Create a Workspace for Optimal Productivity
How to Create a Workspace for Optimal Productivity
Bring Nature Indoors
According to Business Insider, Plants are an easy way to beautify your desk and improve the air quality in your workplace. Research shows that employees in workplaces with plants are 15% more productive.
Try to Work Near the Sun
According to a new study conducted by Alan Hedge, a professor in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis at Cornell, optimizing the amount of natural light in an office significantly improves health and wellness among workers, leading to a boost and gain in productivity.
If you can’t get the sun at your desk, take a walk outside. “Exposure to daylight is critical to maintaining your body’s circadian rhythm, which manages your cognition, serotonin production, and digestion,” Everett told Business Insider. “We literally feel more awake and happier with exposure to daylight.”
Eat Healthy
When employees eat a healthy breakfast, lunch, and snacks, productivity soars. Nutritious foods provide employees with the essential vitamins and minerals their brains need to function properly.
Keep healthy snacks at your desk. The most forgotten nutrition rule in an intense working atmosphere is to snack. Snacks have an important place in a healthy diet. In order to boost your metabolism and give you energy, two snacks should be eaten between lunch and dinner. Fresh fruits, dried fruits, nuts such as peanuts or walnuts, milk and yogurt are ideal for snacking. You can keep them in your drawer or in the refrigerator in your inspiration café!
Wear Noise-Cancelling Headphones
Try a set of noise-canceling headphones for those times when you are working on something that requires intense concentration. Headphones can “serve as a visual cue to your colleagues” that you’re not to be disturbed unless it’s absolutely necessary.
According to Karen Dillon, the author of the HBR Guide to Office Politics “Use discretion in how often you use them. Show that you are still part of the team.” Try a “earbud code” that colleagues use to signify their level of focus. “Two earbuds in means ‘Leave me alone. I’m concentrating.’ One earbud in and one out means ‘Ask before interrupting me.’ And both earbuds out mean ‘I’m interruptible.’
Don’t Listen to Music or “White Noise”
Daniel Levitin, a cognitive neuroscientist and the author of “This Is Your Brain on Music,” says that music hinders your productivity unless you’re working on repetitive tasks.
Get Up and Move
You don’t need a standing desk, but you do need to sit less.
Scientist Kathy Bowman has found that in today’s world, there’s now a new category of people who are ‘actively sedentary’. These people sit for the whole day but still blast out one hour of exercise expecting that to balance out their desk potato days. But you can’t offset 10 hours of stillness with one hour of exercise a week.
Many employees feel that they don’t have enough time during their busy workday to get up and move around. Exercise doesn’t have to mean running a marathon. The main goal is to get employees to sit less and move more. This can be done through making simple changes like stretching once an hour, taking the stairs instead of the elevator and parking in the furthest section of the parking lot.
Try active sitting. A few in the MoveGB office work whilst on an exercise ball. Using an exercise ball as your chair will engage your core (your abs and back muscles), which will assist in maintaining good posture – welcome to ‘active sitting’!
Try walking meetings. Try doing tasks that allow you to be active. Forget about meetings in stuffy boardrooms and take it outside!
Make Sure You Sit with Good Posture
Adjust your chair and computer monitor to force yourself to sit tall, the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) suggests.
“Low-quality chairs lead to fatigue and even back problems, thus decreasing productivity,” Melissa Frederiksen, says the owner and principal designer of Grand Rapids-based Atmosphere 360 Studio,
“You shouldn’t be craning your neck to look at your monitor—that impacts productivity,” Zaslow says. Neck pain is a given for people who work at a computer all day, so it’s important to make the small, deliberate changes you can to reduce that pain as much as possible.
Have Reminders of Home
According to Reader’s Digest, a positive, encouraging environment is crucial to putting your best foot forward at the office. When your stress peaks, it’s important to see the bigger picture and quickly remind yourself to stay positive despite the circumstances. So make space on your desk for who (or what) brings you joy and inspires you to succeed.
Sources:
https://www.rd.com/advice/work-career/productive-workplace-tricks/
https://blog.movegb.com/ways-to-stay-active-at-your-desk-job
https://www.dailysabah.com/health/2018/01/17/five-steps-to-healthy-eating-at-the-office
https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/surprising-results-about-wearing-headphones-and-productivity
