Being Productive While Working from Home
- Yvonne Davenport-Perkins
- Feb 11, 2021
- 4 min read
In March of 2020, when I knew I would (thankfully) be working from home for the foreseeable future, I understood the importance of having a space within my home where I could go to be productive, focus on my deliverables, create content and just read (if the occasion called for it).
My space originally started as our catch-all room: a guest room/laundry room/occasional office. But having so many different functions, it never really served any of them perfectly. And the funny thing about guest rooms - when you have one, you usually end up getting guests! After we welcomed our third boy to the family in the fall of 2019, we figured it was time to put the guest room out of commission (space is at a premium in Brooklyn houses).
In reworking my space to figure out how to work from home during COVID, I came up with the following elements to make sure I could be at my best:

1. Contains all materials and resources
You may not be able to have a specially designated room in your house that can serve as your office, or at least share space with another function. However, you can designate a specific space within your home that contains all the materials and resources that you'll need to attend to deliverables and be creative and productive. Before my work space existed in this room, I had a corner in my bedroom with a comfortable chair and a space to keep all my papers, books and pens. Before we moved to the house where we now live, the living room doubled as my office and the coffee table held all my materials. But make sure that you aren't moving your items from one place to another every day. This takes you out of the WHAT and forces you to focus on the WHERE. And when you're trying to get things done, location change can throw a serious monkey wrench in your flow.
Also consider reconfiguring the space in a room to accommodate the work area. And be sure to set up boundaries with roommates and family members - parameters around what can happen when you're in your work space and when you're not.
2. Good lighting
I CANNOT stress this enough. If your space doesn't have a window for natural light, be sure to have a bright light source so you aren't straining your eyes. Clear and bright light, especially sunlight, has scientifically proven to increase your mood and can lend itself to a more productive work space. In an article from Cleverism about how light affects productivity and mood, they gave the following statistics:

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