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Creating the ideal office space and working environment is as much about the mental as the physical space.
Feeling happy, motivated and valued are essential parts of performing at a high level. Many people are adapting to the work-life balance of working from home, away from the office and their colleagues.
benefit from reduced travel time and even handle domestic tasks during work breaks. It's wonderful to experience increased free time and convenience while working remotely. Working from home can also be stressful and can affect your mental health because of isolation, distractions, and limitations. Read on for some simple work-from-home hints and tips.
A garden office workspace is a good way to have your own space and escape from distractions at home. It allows you to enjoy the refreshing feeling of being indoors while surrounded by nature. Garden affairs has a wide range of bespoke garden office designs from classic to contemporary styles. Most of our garden offices do not require planning permission either.
Escaping a crowded or busy office with air conditioning can be good for your health. We make our fully insulated garden studios from sustainable natural wood, which offers good ventilation and insulation. This means you won't experience the negative effects of sick building syndrome in stuffy concrete structures.
Many home workers have ended up working on the kitchen table or in cramped tiny rooms. A garden office offers a peaceful and healthy workspace with no interruptions or distractions for the mind and body.
Getting your office desk in the right spot is massively important to the successful set-up of your workspace.
Observing nature can boost your thinking skills, creativity, and ability to solve problems. A view over the garden is likely to inspire and motivate you to work and increase your productivity.
If you spend all day on computers or analysing data, it's best to sit with your back to the windows. This ensures that sunlight does not directly expose the screens of your electronic devices, such as computers or laptops. By placing your screens in the shade, you can minimize glare and reflections, which can be distracting and strain your eyes.
To further optimize your workspace setup, consider mounting your monitors on adjustable stands or wall mounts. This allows you to easily adjust the height and angle of your screens, providing a more comfortable viewing experience. Additionally, mounting your monitors can help save desk space and create a cleaner and more organized work area.
When positioning your monitors, it is important to consider ergonomics. Make sure your screen is at eye level or slightly lower and tilted slightly upwards. This reduces strain on your neck and upper back, improving posture and lowering the risk of musculoskeletal problems.
Follow these guidelines to improve your workspace. This will help you work comfortably and increase your productivity. Additionally, it will reduce the risk of eye strain and other physical discomforts that may arise from prolonged computer use.
Getting the right desk and chair is essential to being comfortable and relaxed at work
Compromising on chair quality is easy enough to do (“I’ll just grab that one from the kitchen”), If you’re going to be spending a lot of time sitting, there’s a serious risk of long-term back or neck pain if you get that choice wrong.
Make sure you have an office chair that is comfortable and correctly adjusted to the height of your desk. It’s important to be comfortable and relaxed while you’re working, and a quality chair is a worthwhile investment.
Get all your kit connected, with the right cables, adapters and ports. Having sufficient sockets in your garden office eliminates the need for extension cables and the potential hazards of excessive flexible wires. This not only reduces clutter but also enhances safety.
You want to come to work each day excited about sitting at your desk and getting down to work. You want to avoid getting distracted by all the tech and housekeeping chores you still haven't sorted out. They’re a procrastinator’s paradise.
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The background on your video calls should project a professional look.
If video conferencing is a part of your work day, think about natural lighting so you should sit facing the light. Your customers and colleagues will not just be looking at you they will see your backdrop. A tidy and professional-looking home office will project your professionalism.
What does your backdrop say about you? Well-read, artsy, with a great taste in soft furnishings? Or someone whose office can’t remember when it last saw a vacuum cleaner?
Whether you like it or not, your fellow Zoom participants will judge you based on what they can see going on behind you. So you need to ensure your background projects have the correct, professional look.
The safest bet is to set yourself up against a plain white wall. That way there are no giveaways, the effect is clean, and you could be anywhere.
To show a bit of your personality without revealing too much, put some shelves with neutral colours behind you. Arrange a few things you like on them, like books, plants, and photos. Just enough to say something about you and still be easy on the eye.
Before going live, test your camera by looking at your backdrop to make any necessary changes.
Your fashion choice for working from home doesn't normally matter. When you're on Zoom or conference calls dress to appear smart and professional. It’s important to project the right image, especially to your manager or boss.
Nothing kills productivity like an unbearably slow internet. If your home router is out of range of your garden office don't worry there are various solutions.
You can obtain the most secure internet connection by running an ethernet cable from your home router to the office. Our electricians will quote for the connection when they come to wire your garden room.
There are various other options if you can’t get an ethernet line connected directly to your garden office.
A Wi-Fi booster extends the signal from the router in your house or think about a data-run portable router. Sold by many providers, these little boxes support local SIM cards. Simply load up the data and off you go.
WIFI Adapters use the power cable to the garden office to send the signal. A receiver unit at the other end converts the signal back to a WIFI signal. This is an effective and economical solution.
Connecting with others is crucial as mental health issues have increased since the COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020. Those of us fortunate enough to be at work are feeling the pressure to spend more of our lives at work. Without the right support, this can lead to stress, fatigue and isolation.
Do your best to build in time to keep up communication with colleagues. Evidence from psychologists suggests that staff at collaborative firms are twice as likely to experience workforce and revenue growth as those who don’t enjoy a collaborative working environment.
Schedule individual calls, regularly communicate with coworkers, and actively engage in Zoom meetings. Don’t be the one on mute with the video off – that’s a sure way to reinforce your sense of isolation.
A garden office can be a peaceful place to work, but heating and cooling it effectively can be a challenge. The key is finding the right balance between comfort and efficiency.
For heating, a small wall-mounted convection heater is an affordable option that allows you to only heat the area you're occupying. Make sure to get one with safety features like automatic shutoff. Insulating the walls, ceiling, and floor will also help retain heat. On sunny days, opening blinds or curtains can allow passive solar heating.
For cooling, fans are the most energy-efficient option. Placing a window fan to pull in cooler outdoor air can be effective. Make sure fans are blowing toward you and not just circulating existing hot air. An evaporative cooler is another eco-friendly choice that relies on the cooling effect of water evaporation.
Also, consider the office's ventilation. Opening windows or keeping window vents open will prevent the space from getting stuffy. Add shade from trees or awnings to reduce solar heat gain.
Air conditioning units will both heat and cool the air.
All our garden offices from our simple DIY log cabins kits to fully installed Proline garden rooms come with double-glazed windows and doors.
With some strategic heating, cooling, and ventilation methods, your garden office can stay comfortable year-round without wasting energy.
We’ve already mentioned how having your office in the great outdoors is likely to be positive for your mindset. Bringing your indoors to life with green plants and cut flowers is also great for the grey matter.
Adding plants to your garden office will make it look nice, bring nature inside, and keep the air clean and fresh. This will help you stay awake, be creative, and feel happy.
If you haven’t had plants before, and don’t want the hassle of maintenance, try some simple succulents. They need little attention and can look just as good.
Or if you’re looking for zero maintenance, try buying fake. They’re not the real thing and won’t clean your office air through photosynthesis, but they can look gorgeous. And no watering required.
Other ways of injecting some more life and energy into your office space:
Browse our range of Garden Offices & Studios, or get in touch to create a bespoke design.
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