3 Easy Ways To Improve Your Work Environment
Staying productive is as simple as throwing your trash away
Let’s cut to the chase…
I’ve seen the damage working from home can do. It turns office runway models into Zoom slugs who don’t clean up their desks.
That leftover wrapper under your keyboard does more harm than good. It’s something to stare at and consider whether it’s worth spending the energy to throw it away.
An unkempt work environment is a productivity… (what’s the opposite of a catalyst?)
Here are three simple ways to tidy up your work environment. Remember, an environment is more than what you see. It’s the mentality you bring with you into the workday.
1. Keep the snacks out of the office
Listen up, Cheeto fingers.
I get it. Snacking and working go hand-in-hand. What’s a day at the office without a treat to get you through the spreadsheets and phone calls you don’t want to make?
Here’s the thing: food is a distraction, as much as I hate to say it.
“Huh? But I need to eat, right?”
Of course, you do; I understand better than anyone. I’m thinking about the five boxes of cereal in my cupboard calling my name right now. The thing is, I don’t keep snacks in my workspace.
The reason is that I can’t slip into the flow state with them in my presence. Deep work happens when there is nothing, and I mean nothing in your way.
Cell phones
Loud music
Cheeseless “cheesy” popcorn
I keep all of these things out of sight when I write my blog posts and edit my client’s videos. Simply put, they’re too distracting, and would cancel out my productivity.
2. Invest in a large monitor
I only use my laptop in airports.
I work from a 27-inch screen and it’s saved my hiney more times than I can count.
It pays to think about your eye holes. I don’t want my eyes to randomly stop working because I have to squint at a tiny 13-inch laptop screen just to read an email. I do some pretty heavy video editing. I have to look at the tiny detailed audio files to determine when to make the right cuts.
With a big monitor, you can keep more windows open, which generally makes your workflow more productive.
Might I add the general frustration of working with a tiny piece of screen real estate. So much can go wrong, which pisses you off and make you want to stop working.
It’s not you. It’s your laptop.
3. Take an appropriate amount of breaks
I thought I was going to say work harder? No way.
There’s evidence that even a couple of minutes is enough to rewire your brain for work again. I mean, sometimes you need to step away from the computer and take a walk. I do it at least three times a day, but I always come back regenerated.
I can’t explain it, but maybe this will make sense of things:
"Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets”—Tim Kreider New York Times
A mental pause, or idleness, isn’t something you should feel wrong about. It’s something you deserve for working as hard as you do. A little break has a trampoline effect on your productivity. You have to sink into the bouncy mesh fabric first to get some mad air.
Time away to reset your mind has a huge upside. In fact, it’s about time I take a break for a little while…
Here are last week’s articles in case you missed them
3 Mental Resets That Will Save You From Giving Up Big Dreams
3 Methods I Plan To Use to 3X My Social Media Growth for Web 3.0
If you like what you see, consider sharing it with a friend! It would really help this young gun grow his audience ;) All you gotta do is click the little button…