#tips to stay active and energised throughout your workday

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Wondering how to maintain the energy and activity throughout your day? Let’s face it…with our demanding work schedules, it’s easy to find ourselves glued to our chairs for long stretches of time. Here are some simple and effective strategies to help us break free from the sedentary trap and create a healthier work environment. Check this out!

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How to Create a Better Working Environment for Your Employees and Your Company

A company’s work environment can have a significant impact on employee satisfaction, productivity, and retention. Whether you’re moving into a new office space or looking to improve your current one, there are many things you can do to create a workspace that motivates and inspires your team. Here are some tips from the top office space interior solutions in Bangalore for designing your workplace to bring out the best in your employees and your business.

– Promote Collaboration and Creativity

To tap into this, design spaces with the help of the top adaptable office design firm in Bangalore that make it easy for employees to brainstorm together. Have open floor plans with moveable furniture that can be rearranged as needed. Create casual meeting areas with couches and whiteboards for spur-of-the-moment collaboration. Have larger conference rooms for structured creative sessions. The ability to work together and bounce ideas off each other fosters innovation.

– Let in Natural Light 

Bring some of that vitality indoors by maximising natural lighting throughout your office. Studies show that exposure to natural light during the workday lifts moods, boosts vitamin D, and increases productivity. Install skylights, use glass interior walls and place workstations near windows. If your office lacks access to daylight, invest in solar tube skylights or light therapy lamps to give your team a daily dose of the sun’s healthy rays.

– Use Biophilic Design

Biophilic design incorporates natural elements, and now you can do this by having living green walls, potted plants, water features, and nature imagery with the leading biophilic office design specialists in Bangalore. Other biophilic elements like natural wood or stone surfaces, textured fabrics, and natural lighting appeal to people’s innate love of nature. An office filled with life and references to the outdoors has proven benefits for well-being and focus.

– Give Employees Control Over Their Spaces

Empower your staff to customise their own workspaces based on their preferences and needs. Provide height-adjustable sit/stand desks so they can choose to sit or stand during the day. Have portable desk partitions so they can control their privacy and noise levels. Let them pick out their own office chairs and decorations for personalisation. Giving employees some autonomy over their spaces helps them feel more comfortable and productive.

– Design for Movement

Build opportunities for movement around the office with the aid of the top office furniture design experts in Bangalore. Have central staircases that encourage using the stairs versus just the elevators. Set up standing-height tables for quick meetings or laptop use. Keep pathways open and add exercise balls or stability discs for an active seating option. The ability to move around, change postures, and stay energised makes for happier, healthier employees.

– Provide Quiet Spaces

While collaboration is essential, employees also need quiet spaces for focused work. Create small nooks where individuals can retreat with their laptops when they need to concentrate. Have phone booths for private calls. Designate certain meeting rooms that can only be booked for silent working sessions. Let staff wear noise-cancelling headphones to tune out distractions. Giving employees access to quiet spaces demonstrates that you respect their need to do focused work.

– Use Uplifting Colour Schemes

The colours you choose for your office walls, floors, and decor have a subtle yet profound effect on mood and motivation. Warm hues like yellow, orange, and red spark energy and creativity. Cool blues and greens are calming and refreshing. Add bright accent walls or murals for visual interest. Ensure there is plenty of contrast between surfaces, furniture, and floors to keep spaces visually engaging. The right colour scheme gives any workplace an energising ambience.  

– Prioritise Comfort and Ergonomics 

Prevent employee fatigue and discomfort by providing high-quality furnishings and equipment. Hire an excellent technology-integrated workspaces designer in Bangalore and invest in ergonomic desks, chairs, keyboards, and monitors tailored to each person’s needs. Make sure lighting levels are comfortable for computer use without glare or eyestrain. Ensure heating and cooling systems can keep temperatures pleasant year-round.

– Display Artful and Uplifting Décor

The artwork and objects you place around your office should lift moods and inspire your staff. Hang visually attractive photographs or paintings from local artists. Bring in sculptures or indoor plants with unique shapes and textures. Post uplifting quotes on the walls that reflect your company values. Create particular areas to showcase employee achievements or milestones. Surrounding people with meaningful décor gives your workspace personality and purpose. 

The Bottom Line

Creating an exceptional workplace that brings out the best in your team can be challenging, but it’s worth the investment. Pay attention to elements like natural light, ergonomics, movement, collaboration, personalisation, nature, and positivity. An inspiring, healthy workspace where people love to work has ripple effects on your business success. As the top innovative office design services provider in Bangalore, Studio AsA helps companies create inspiring and functional workspaces so their teams will thrive. Whether you need help designing your new office or revamping your current one, the commercial designers can help. They specialise in creating spaces tailored to how people work and live today, with a focus on flexibility, wellness, and engagement.

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via Screaming Frog

The recent pandemic has completely restructured and realigned the way in which we live and work. Advancement in technology and shifts in organisational culture and value has meant that working from home has in more recent years become increasingly common and encouraged. However, for many, the sudden requirement to re-locate to a home office for an extended period will be a first-time experience and one that naturally brings its own challenges. Maintaining a calm, positive mindset and productive level of work can prove difficult when the outside world is going through turmoil and disruption. The following blog will provide 5 tips I have found useful to keep focused, productive and most importantly, positive during one of the most unprecedented times we have faced.

1) Allocate Yourself A ‘Workspace’

Whether you are living alone in a studio apartment, at home with 2 dogs and a family or sharing a house with friends, finding and creating your new workspace with as few distractions as possible is vital for maintaining routine and productivity. Many of us are familiar with having clear distinctions between work and home life. This defined balance and physical separation means that we can disconnect and re-charge at the end of our working day. Having a designated workspace where you can ‘enter’ in the morning and ‘leave’ at the end of the day ensures that your mind is engaging and disengaging from the working day and keeping your personal life as separate as possible.

I have also found it helpful to work somewhere with close proximity to a window for fresh air, as well as an area with a door or some form of separation from the rest of the house, as it is a great way to signal to other members of your household that you are busy. Ultimately, this new area is where you will be spending the majority of your day so anything to make you feel comfortable is a must.

2) Turn off Notifications

Many of us will be wanting to keep updated with the current affairs and any breaking news. However, this can ultimately lead to distractions as well as stress and anxiety. Currently, the media is saturated with important guidance and information on the pandemic, however in addition to this, there can be stories written by journalists that spark increased confusion and concern. Turning off notifications when you are completing a task or wanting to focus most, can help with productivity. In addition to this, ensuring that you have a trusted news source that you can refer to when you require information is important.

This suggestion not only applies to news apps, but also to apps such as Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter etc. wherein a home environment away from your team you may find it tempting to spend more time scrolling through the news feed. There are several apps on the App Store that help with smartphone distractions. One I find useful is called Focus To-Do: Focus Timer & Tasks. This app brings together the popular Pomodoro Technique, which is a time management method designed to make you work in intervals of traditionally 25 minutes separated by short breaks, with a useful To-Do List option. By prioritising your work tasks on the To-Do list and utilising the timer, it’s a great way to really focus on the task at hand and in turn, improve productivity.

3) Slack, Call, Email, Zoom – Whatever it takes; COMMUNICATE!

This is an absolute must. Good relationships with team members and managers contribute significantly to job satisfaction, healthy work environments and productivity. Now we are remotely working, it’s more important than ever to find new ways to connect and stay in touch with your team, not only from a social perspective, but also to ensure that workflow and projects are running smoothly. We are used to easy and effortless communication in the office, as quick as swinging around on the office chair or walking over to a colleague’s desk. Working from home can, therefore, feel relatively unstructured and isolating, making it even more vital to put a lot of emphasis on communicating with your team and actively making the effort to ask how they are doing and realign focus.

Something my team and I have made a conscious effort to do since the start of lockdown is a virtual ‘PPC Team Huddle’. Each morning, we set aside the time to video call on Microsoft Teams to check in with everyone, the on-going work, what happened the previous day and what is upcoming. At times when you feel as though you are losing touch with your teammates, this can prove extremely useful and reassuring. Additionally, it helps everyone concentrate on the outstanding tasks and can set a clear focus for the day, increasing productivity.

4) Keep Up a Routine

This may seem blatantly obvious, however, maintaining some form of routine working from home will help keep things as normal as possible, as well as keep you motivated and productive throughout the day.

Despite many of us having much more flexibility with our schedules, maintaining some form of consistency can help your body and mind adjust accordingly, regulate any underlying feelings of stress and put you into the right mindset for the working day. It also helps with defining that distinction between work and personal life. Your commute from home to the office not only gets you to a physical location but also into the right frame of mind. The time commuting in the mornings and evenings helps your mind ease into work preparing you for the day to come or allows you to switch off when the day has come to an end. Take the time in the morning to do what you would usually; eat breakfast in the kitchen, listen to music away from your designated workspace, meditate, exercise, whatever it may be to help wake you up and feel ready and energised for the workday. This routine will in turn, help you feel less anxious and more focused so that your day can be productive.

5) Take Regular Breaks

Actively take time throughout your working day to get up, move, rehydrate away from the screen. It’s human to get distracted and there will always be distractions. After speaking to Briony Gunson who works at beanddo during a very insightful session on “Helpful Habits – Focus, Productivity and Wellbeing”, I learnt that we lose attention 6-10 times per minute! By acknowledging that our minds need to take a couple minutes to re-focus is okay and important for maintaining productivity levels.

Hopefully these 5 tips can help you maintain productivity levels during these very uncertain times. It would be great to hear any other tips and suggestions, so if you would like to leave a comment below please don’t hesitate to do so!

The post Working from Home During the COVID-19 Pandemic – 5 Ways to Maintain Productivity appeared first on Screaming Frog.