Creating an Efficient Home Office Setup

Can a messy home really impact your productivity levels? As fewer of us commute to work, it’s important for leaders to know how your everyday environment impacts your emotional state.

There is plenty of research that shows how working in a cluttered home has an enormous impact on productivity, because the clutter distracts us and we procrastinate on getting our work done.

It’s essential that your home — or your workspace — works for you. For those entrepreneurs who are office-based, leaving and going back to an untidy home can even have knock-on effects. And don’t overlook the surrounding rooms. When you’re stressed from running a business, walking into a kitchen that’s piled high with dishes while you’re on your lunch break, isn’t going to have a positive effect.

However, there are plenty of easy ways to keep on top of organising your home, to create a calm, stress-free environment. Follow these tips, and watch how you tick more off your to-do list.

Get into daily habits

Look at your schedule every day and see if having the same start and finish times works for you. When does your schedule allow for rest breaks, lunch, coffee? 

Just because many of us now have a remote or hybrid work pattern, doesn’t mean we need to be glued to our screens for eight hours a day.

Use those short bursts of time, or the hours you used to spend commuting into doing some chores around your home, so you don’t create a backlog during the week. 

What are things you can do on a daily basis to make your life easier? Why not unload the dishwasher in the morning, make your bed, put a load of laundry on? 

Even if life is hectic or busy, doing these on a daily basis will help you set yourself up for the day. You’ll head to work and meetings with a clear mind, meaning you’ll be able to focus more on the tasks at hand.

Then, do the same at the end of the day — so you wake up to fewer things to do. Daily you need to spend five minutes tidying up your desk, throwing rubbish in the bin, taking glasses to the kitchen, putting office supplies away, and ensuring papers are filed away. 

Doing this daily reset gives you a defined cutoff at the end and feels like you have finished for that day.

Finding a quiet space for your home office

Decide on the place where your home office will work best. If you’re lucky enough to have a room in your home, that would be a preferred option so you can close the door on work in the evening. 

Also having your desk in a quiet place, can help you from being distracted frequently. If you are working from the kitchen or dining room table then you need a place where all the work paraphernalia like laptops and stationery can go and put away when the working day is over.

Given today’s always-on work culture, clearing some space in a living room cupboard to store the work laptop might be the difference between being confronted by work all the time and being able to relax in the evening and disconnect after work.

Is the room you’re working in clutter free? Or do you have chaos all around you? This has a huge impact on your stress levels and, in turn, your emotional state. It means you’re less likely to be able to focus on your work. So why not declutter and tidy up the room you’re working in? 

Spend a few minutes adding time for decluttering and organising into your work calendar and don’t feel as if this is taking away from your day job. It’s very much a valid part of productivity in the same way as taking a course. Having less mess will help you to focus and process information better.

How to organise your home office

Next up is the room or area itself. How is the light, sound and temperature in the room? It’s important to get these basics right. When it is too hot, too cold, too bright or sound travels it is hard to concentrate and get the job done. 

Make sure to add some plants since seeing green increases productivity.  Also look at your furniture. Have you got the right desk, office chair, computer equipment? 

Put your office supplies in a desk drawer at hand so they’re not all out. If you don’t use it all, let it go, so you only have what you need at home, especially if space is limited. 

Remember, daily tasks are key. Getting into a routine of doing the small jobs as second nature, will mean they don’t turn into bigger issues. And it means you’re living, and working in a clutter-free environment, which will do wonders for your productivity too.