Whether you’re a full-time WFH freelancer or you’re home for the duration while your main office is closed, you’ve probably gotten pretty used to working from your living space by now.
But that doesn’t mean that you’re making the most of it.
Many of us have seriously sub-par home work setups. Between lack of space (shifting from one side of the bed to the other counts as a commute now, amirite?) and the struggle of getting a halfway decent ergonomic setup when you’re at the coffee table, a lot of folks are suddenly missing the office.
At least there someone else made the coffee and you had a desk that was at the right height!
While you might not be able to have a whole separate home office – working from a tray table in the corner of the bedroom is simply reality for lots of us – you can still make the space where you work, work for you with a few cheap and easy upgrades.
How to Upgrade Your Home Work Space
1. Get the Right Height Work Surface
Do not – I repeat, do not – work with your laptop on your actual lap. Or on the coffee table. Or at anything other than the right ergonomic height for you.
Getting the right setup doesn’t have to be expensive. You can use a lower chair so that your arms are at the right height when you’re working at the kitchen table. Or you can pick up an inexpensive adjustable TV tray table that you can use to position your laptop just so, complete with a tilt. And cupholder. Because cupholder.
Stuck working on the bed? Grab an adjustable, multi-angle lap desk. As a bonus, you can position it on a desk to create a super-cheap improvised standing desk if you add a keyboard and mouse.
What’s the right height? That depends on your unique body, but there are some handy calculators to help you get into the ballpark. From there, you can adjust a bit to find what makes you the most comfortable.
2. Improve Your Lighting
One of the cheapest, best upgrades you can make to your workspace is decent lighting. If you have natural light available, by all means: use it! Studies have shown that natural light enhances productivity and well-being.
If you don’t have a big ol’ bay window, though, you can still get the benefits of full-spectrum light with an inexpensive light bulb swap.
Make sure you have a lamp positioned near your workspace – off to one side and slightly overhead is ideal for having flattering lighting on a Zoom call, by the way – and switch the regular bulb for a full-spectrum daylight CFL.
You’ll reduce eye strain and improve your mood and productivity. Score.
3. Add Some Greenery
Plants improve mood, purify the air, help us concentrate, and might even help you get better faster if you get sick.
While the best benefits are found from “forest bathing,” or being actually outside immersed in nature, even houseplants have a positive effect on our productivity and well-being. Like, 38% more productive and 47% calmer. Dang.
If you’re like me and you have a black thumb, you might look into low-maintenance plants like succulents or even some herbs (I haven’t yet managed to kill off either the mint or the rosemary plant).
4. Make Yourself Smile
Whatever “happy” means to you, do that to your workspace.
That might mean hanging some funky wall art, putting a silly sign on your desk, using neon blue sticky notes instead of yellow ones, or adding to your collection of crazy coffee mugs and using a different one every day.
It doesn’t matter what you do, it just matters that your workspace is personalized for you and that there’s something there that makes you smirk, if not actually grin, every time you spot it.
For me, that’s a couple of sticky notes with funny drawings on them tacked up behind my standing laptop setup, plus a poster reminding me that we are a velociraptor-free office and it has been 2 days since our last incident.
Whatever works.
Just remember: you’re spending a lot of dang time working, and wherever you work, you should have a few personal things that remind you that you’re human, you matter, and you deserve to smile.
Action Steps
- Take charge of your workspace. Even if it’s a corner of the living room or your bedroom, make it your own.
- Figure out your best working surface height and tinker with your chair and desk setup until you find a relaxed, comfortable position that doesn’t trigger aches and pains after a couple hours of work.
- Find a good adjustable lamp and put in a full-spectrum bulb.
- Get a houseplant to be your new coworker.
- Avoid velociraptors. They’re jerks and they’re always stealing food out of the office fridge.
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