Creating a Healthy Home Workspace Environment

How many of you were working remotely during the pandemic and thought it would be a temporary situation so didn’t take time to set up a proper workspace? And then, you continue to work remotely either part or full-time post-pandemic and are realizing that you really need a proper workspace environment? Let’s face it – with the aftermath of what will be a semi-permanent transition of so many work-from-home or remote employees (both full- and part-time), there is a desperate need to address the most effective strategies for creating a healthy and productive workspace. There are so many challenges for working from home, especially when multiple family-members or roommates may be present in the household and when space is limited.

Starting my own remote business this fall is raising this issue for me as I work from home almost every day (there are a couple of days a week that I will be traveling for university teaching). I share a small two-bedroom rental home with my partner on a very large and expansive property in the Catskill Mountain region of New York. It is absolutely lovely and so refreshing to be able to walk out onto the deck and breathe fresh pine-tree air and hear running water of the nearby creek at any time of day. Inside, we have an open floor plan for the kitchen/dining/living space with separate rooms for a small bedroom (which my partner uses for his music production space) and our larger bedroom, as well as a bathroom. The wonderful thing about the small house is that every room has windows (perfect for natural daylight and fresh air), and the living space has a wood burning stove, which is absolutely comforting and enjoyable on cold winter nights.

Because we share a creative practice together, we decided to set up our living space as a studio environment – with multiple desks to work at for various tasks like video editing and writing, etc. We also have a collapsible worktable that we set up for the Cricut Maker and other craft and maker activities when we are developing product designs. I spend the majority of my time in this living-studio space when working on my own business as well, occupying one of the smaller desks to do my writing, marketing, and administrative activities. We have one larger desk with a larger computer and display that I will also use when I am specifically working on architectural designs.

Because of the shared living and work situation, I typically need to wear noise-cancelling headphones while conducting meetings or Zoom calls or otherwise desiring to focus with some background music. This is one purchase that I made during the early stage of remote working when the pandemic hit in 2020 and I still find the headphones useful today. In fact, they are also useful for working on-the-go when traveling on trains or in airports as the noise-cancelling feature really allows you to maintain focus. Our hearing and sense of environmental noise is one of the primary distractions in a work environment. Addressing the acoustics of your home workspace is the first order of business when you want to make improvements. If you are lucky enough to have your own dedicated home office as a separate room, then you have a head-start on acoustic privacy. You can still make design improvements with the materials in the workspace to soften the sounds and reduce unwanted noise. If you have hardwood or tile floors, you can place a throw-rug under your general desk and chair area. You can also incorporate other soft materials such as throw pillows on any ancillary seating furniture and use drapery and curtains on the interior even if you have blinds for daylight control. 

I remember when I first started teaching from home in spring of 2020 in Arizona and the next-door neighbor decided to have a large tree cut-down in this timeframe, which meant that every morning when I was trying to teach my class via Zoom there was a loud chainsaw buzzing in the background. It was so annoying but also impossible to overcome, really. Unless the rental house that I was living in at the time had super thick insulated exterior walls and high-end triple-glazing with quality frames, the extreme noise from the outdoors was unavoidable to hear within my living space. However, if you are considering a home renovation or new construction it may be worth investing in additional exterior wall thickness and insulation to improve the acoustics of your home especially if you live in a noisy urban environment.

Visual focus is the next primary consideration for setting up an effective home workspace. This concept can be expanded in a few ways. For one, you want to have clarity in our task at hand, so keeping a clutter-free environment to allow you to focus is helpful. Having plants or natural elements in view is also beneficial to induce calming and creative effects in our mind. The ability to focus on your work also means that you want to minimize disruptions from other household members, which kind of relates to whether they can see you or not. In my situation, my partner can see me any time he enters the main living space. Sometimes he will just start talking to me, because it is natural to share ideas and thoughts with one’s partner. I appreciate his communication and willingness to talk freely, but it also becomes a distraction from whatever task I was working on at the moment.

If you don’t have your own dedicated room for a home office, and your only opportunity for a workspace is in a more general use area (living, kitchen, etc.), then take some time to figure out how to set up your visual environment to be as beneficial as possible. I am considering buying a lightweight folding shoji screen as I can pop this up for some visual privacy to stay focused during work tasks and reduce disruptions from others. The shoji screen is nice because it is made with white rice paper that allows for some diffuse light to filter through. It can also be placed in the background during video conference calls so that there is a clean visual environment appearing on the screen. This is better than using virtual backgrounds, which tend to lose the person in the camera when every they move too close or too far out of focus. It is easy to hang a nice plant or some handmade textiles over the shoji screen to personalize the aesthetic and increase biophilic aspects. 

Another part of the visual environment that also enables productivity and health is the amount of natural daylight in your space. It is so important to have exposure to natural light each day. This is especially true at sunrise to keep your circadian rhythm on track. But it is also important for your entire day to have a sense of what is happening with the movements of the sun, clouds, and weather patterns outdoors. When you have a window and view to the outdoors within your workspace, it keeps you synchronized with the passing of time more naturally and thus allows for a more natural and relaxed workflow throughout the day. A window or skylight also brings the natural light into your space and can be so helpful for illuminating your work surfaces and decreasing eye fatigue and reducing headaches. You will also be able to reduce your dependency on electric lighting and save a little on the utility bill. At the same time, if you do have access to natural daylighting, you want to establish the position of your desk so that you have a view out, either in front of you or on the side. You don’t want the window behind you because this will cause glare on your computer screen, which is draining on your eyes and problematic for seeing information accurately. In addition to these aspects of light, it’s also important to reduce your exposure to blue-light from screens and devices. We’ll take a look at details on the topic of optics for healthy workspaces in a future blog!

Now, some people I am aware, have adapted a portion of a large walk-in closet as their home workspace. This means it is unlikely there are any windows with views to the outdoors, though some will have skylights which is great for natural daylight. If this is your situation, start thinking about a renovation for adding a skylight to improve your workspace. In the meantime, make sure you take breaks and move your body to a location in the house where you can get some views outdoors or actually step outside throughout the day for natural light and fresh air. This is true for everyone and any workspace setting! It is so important to move the body throughout the day. The body is designed for physical activity, mobility, and movement and suffers when there is too much sedentary conditions for long periods of time. I will build in physical movement breaks during my work time by using a version of the pomodoro method. By setting a timer to remind yourself to take a break and get up and move your body at least once every hour you are doing yourself and your work a wonderful favor! I also use a yoga fitness app, Asana Rebel, that has a wonderful desk dwellers series of routines to help alleviate the common stresses from sitting at a computer all day. The routines include some quick 10-minute exercises that can be done right at the desk! These are so amazing and very refreshing in such a short time.

There are useful workspace furnishings that will aid in the best posture and stand for your body. The best option is to get yourself an adjustable desk that will accommodate both sitting and standing positions. Standing while working can keep your mind more active while also improving your posture. If you are sitting, or prefer sitting at time, be sure to get a desk chair that is ergonomically sized for your body and one that has adjustable features to customize it to your optimal sitting position. You also want to be one arm’s length distance from your computer screen and have your screen in front of you at eye level. I find myself working at my desk with my smaller laptop, which causes my gaze to be downwards onto my laptop screen. Over time, this causes hunching and tightness in the shoulder and neck area and is not good for healthy posture. There are adjustable laptop stands that can improve the position of the screen to be aligned with eye level while also raising the keyboard to be positioned for straight posture when typing.

I am on the market for all of these furnishings as I continue to get my home workspace setup for the longer haul of remote working. In addition, I have some other useful tips to share for improving the air quality in your workspace and many reasons why not to eat or snack at your desk! Grab you free copy of the Healthy Home Workspace 5-step Guide, delivered right to your inbox, for additional insights and knowledge for healthy home and workspace design.

If you have any questions about the most effective design strategies for your home workspace, reach out to AIDA, LLC today for a consultation. You can always find more information and healthy home resources at Aletheia Ida Design and Architecture, LLC (AIDA, LLC) at www.aletheiaida.com.