Working from home? Tips to Enhance Your Home Office
“Early on, when I had twins aged 2, I was trying to work from home as well. I buried a desk in the back corner of my basement storage room, behind a bunch of shelves, just so I could concentrate when I worked from home.
I would have to shake spiders out of the keyboard at times and was always on the lookout from critters descending from the ceiling. About a year in, I broke my chair, so I sat on a cheap metal folding chair for about two years. Like the kind you’d see in the basement of a southern baptist church in the 80s.
That’s when I knew it was time to sort out my home office.”
If you’re accustomed to a corporate environment, working from home can feel like something of a holiday.
Your daily commute is a mere ten paces, from your bedroom to the kitchen table, you can take phone meetings in your pajamas and your desk is now a comfy couch. As lockdown continues, working from home is an ongoing reality for many Americans, and for some, the novelty is starting to wear off. Sore neck and back pain, difficulty focusing, continual distractions, plus a blurring of work and free time are some of the complaints.
For many of us, there is also no designated office space in our homes and we have had to make do with corners of the living room and kitchen tables. So how can we enhance our home workstation to make it more comfortable and productive?
1. Minimize distractions
According to a study by the University of California Irvine, it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus on a task once you’ve been distracted. So if your work is disrupted five times a day, you’ll lose almost two hours.
Ideally, choose a room where you can shut the door, but if that isn’t possible choose a corner of a room and use furniture to define the boundaries of that space. If the room isn’t quiet, try using noise-canceling headphones to distance yourself from any distracting sounds.
2. Don’t work on your sofa (unless you really have to)
It might be tempting, but try not to do it. Working on your sofa all day could lead to back pain. Try to work at a desk, or if you don’t have a desk, you could use the kitchen table. You can create extra lower back support by using a rolled-up hand towel to support your lumbar.
Dr. Steven Yeomans, a chiropractor and partner at the Yeomans-Edinger Chiropractic Center, advises: “Put a rolled towel behind the small of your back whenever you plan to sit for an extended period. The towel fills the natural empty space that forms when your upper body is upright and prevents your lower back from rounding outwards or slumping.
When your lower back is rounded, it’s difficult to keep your neck aligned above your shoulders as it promotes forward head posture. The muscles that support your neck and head become tired, and your neck droops forward. This angle puts more stress on your joints, discs, and overstretched ligaments, causing or worsening neck and upper back pain. Again, experiment with different sized rolled towels to find the best fit for you.”
3. Adjust the height of your screen
Your screen should ideally be at eye level, to save you craning your neck looking down. If you’re working from a laptop, think about investing in a keyboard and a mouse.
Use either a laptop stand or a pile of books to elevate your screen. This will help protect your neck.
4. Take micro-breaks
If you’re an office worker, you will likely spend around 1,700 hours a year staring at a computer screen, according to a study sponsored by ACUVUE. Staring at a screen all day has become the norm, but for the benefit of our eyes (and our sanity), it’s important to remember to take regular breaks, particularly when working from home.
Even if it’s just for five minutes, it’s important to get up and move around.
5. Exercise
According to the PCSFN, less than 5% of Americans exercise for at least 30 minutes every day. Sometimes it’s hard to fit exercise in, between juggling work, personal and family commitments. Try to go for a walk, or take up online yoga or why not try some deskercise!
With no colleagues sitting opposite, it might be the perfect time to experiment with exercising at your desk.
6. Schedule
If work and home life have merged into one, it might be time to set a stricter schedule. Particularly when working from home, having boundaries between work and family life is important.
Set your working hours, as if you were going into the office. It’s easy to do an extra hour or two whilst you’re at home, but unless you have a looming deadline, try to stick to your office hours. Your brain needs downtime too.
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