There are several things you can do to be more comfortable in your office. Click here to learn how to get comfortable at work.
Studies have shown that the average person spends about 90,000 hours at work throughout the course of their life. That works out to be about one-third of their total time.
If you’re going to spend that much time at work, there are steps you should take to ensure that you’re comfortable as often as possible. By figuring out how to get comfortable, you can ensure that you’re able to do a good job at work while maintaining control over your comfort levels.
Regardless of whether or not you have your own office at work, you can learn how to be more comfortable. By putting in just a little extra effort, you can make your office comfort a top priority and look forward to going into work from now on.
Here is a complete guide on how to get comfortable at work.
Start by Choosing the Right Desk
The very first thing you should do when you’re trying to figure out how to get comfortable at work is choose the right desk for your workspace. You’re going to be spending many, many hours sitting at your desk, which is why it’s so important for you to love it.
Your desk should be big enough to hold everything that you’re going to need to put on and in it. This will include your computer, your phone, your documents, and more.
But your desk shouldn’t be so big that it overcrowds your office space and takes up entirely too much room. You’re going to feel cramped when this is the case, and it’s going to take a toll on your office comfort before long.
Look around for a desk that is just the right size for you. It should be a desk that gets you excited to get to work every morning when you walk in and sit down at it.
You might even want to take a look at some of the newfangled standing desks that are out there. With one study after another suggesting that sitting for long periods of time at work is hurting many Americans’ health, it could be a great idea to invest in a standing desk that’ll get you up off your feet.
Pick Out the Right Office Chair
Regardless of whether or not you have a standing desk in your workspace at work, you’re going to spend at least some time sitting down. Recent reports have indicated that the average person spends well over 6 hours a day sitting down at work.
With this in mind, you’ll want to have more than just a comfortable desk at work. You’ll also want to have a comfortable chair to sit down in every day. It should provide you with padding in all the right places and offer things like lumbar support.
You might even want to go the extra mile and learn how to make a desk chair more comfortable. One way to do it is by outfitting a chair with a comfy coccyx cushion. It’ll take your office comfort to the next level.
You and your office chair are going to log a lot of long hours in the weeks, months, and years to come. It’s important for you to love everything about it. It’s also important for you to replace it accordingly in the future so that it continues to provide you with nothing but comfort.
Adjust Your Desk and Chair to Practice Good Posture
As long as you have a comfy desk and chair in your workspace, you might think that’ll be more than enough to ensure your total comfort at work. But unfortunately, this might not be the case if you don’t adjust your desk and chair to practice good posture.
How can you do this? Well, you can start by adjusting the heights of your desk and chair so that they complement one another. You can also adjust the positioning of things like your computer monitor, your keyboard, your mouse, and more so that they’re all within arm’s reach.
Additionally, you can spend time tinkering with your office chair to see that it’s set up in such a way that it allows you to maintain good posture. This means adjusting it so that your back is flat against the back of it, your feet are flat on the floor, and your shoulders are relaxed enough to keep you comfortable.
Good posture is the key to avoiding back and neck pain at work. It can work wonders for your alignment and make you more comfortable than you could have ever imagined at work.
Consider Investing in a Headset for Your Phone
Do you spend a ton of time on the phone at work? If you do, you’re going to begin to notice that your neck and shoulders hurt because of how you hold your phone when you’re talking on it.
Even if your desk and chair are adjusted properly to guarantee good posture, you can throw everything off by using your head, neck, and shoulders to prop up your phone all the time. You’ll go home with stiffness in these areas almost every night after spending all day on the phone.
Rather than risking this kind of pain, why not pick up a headset for your phone instead? It’ll allow you to make and take calls all day long without putting your head, neck, and shoulders in a compromising position.
Bring in More Than Enough Lighting
Chances are, your employer already provides some kind of lighting in your office space that allows you to see what you’re working on at your desk. But that lighting might be crappy fluorescent lighting or another kind of overhead lighting that’s not going to do your eyes any favors.
Instead of relying on this lighting, why not bring in something a little bit better for your specific workspace? You might find that introducing LED lighting will help you see what you’re working on at any given moment way better than you could before.
You can also really warm up your workspace and make it more visually appealing with the right lighting. It’s amazing how much of a mood booster good lighting can be when you add it to your space.
Add a Plant (or Two!) to the Mix
Good lighting isn’t the only thing that can boost your mood when you’re at work. You might also be able to improve your mood by leaps and bounds by sticking one or two plants onto your desk or onto one of the shelves that surround your desk.
You can find plants that require next to no maintenance for your desk. They’ll provide you with a long list of benefits when you work them into the mix and take good care of them.
What are some of these benefits? Take a look at a few of the biggest ones below:
- They’ll clean the air in your workspace and make it easier to breathe it in
- They’ll help lower your carbon dioxide levels and eliminate at least some of the stress that you feel
- They’ll make you feel way more productive and give your creativity levels a boost
You don’t necessarily need to surround yourself with an entire garden to benefit from plants, either. You’ll only need a couple of them to reap the rewards of incorporating them into your workspace design.
Surround Yourself With Lots of Photos
When you make your way into work in the morning, there are going to be days when you lack the motivation to put your best foot forward. You’re going to have to dig deep to find the inspiration you need to do a good job.
One easy way to summon this inspiration is by surrounding yourself with lots of photos of your family members and friends. This will serve as a constant reminder of why you work so hard.
Sticking photos on your desk will also provide it with the personal touch that it needs. Up until this point, you will have put together a workspace that could belong to just about anyone. But once you add photos to your desk, it’ll make the space unique to you and show how much you love your family members and friends.
If you’re going to be spending one-third of your life at work, you should try your best to make it feel just like home in whatever ways that you can. Surrounding yourself with photos is one of the most effective ways to do this so that you feel comfortable at all times.
Find Ways to Incorporate Other Personal Touches
Positioning photos of your family members and friends throughout your workspace will put your personal touch on the space. But why stop there when adding your touch to it?
The more of a personal touch that you put on the space, the more comfortable you’re going to feel working in it. It’s why you should also incorporate other personal touches to the space if you have the room to do it.
Some of the things you can add to your workspace include:
- A customized mousepad
- A calendar that says something about your personality
- Awards and trophies that you’ve won while at work
- A “welcome” mat to invite people to stop by your workspace
- Art that you can hang up on the wall
You do want to be careful about going too overboard with the personal touches. If you clutter up your workspace, it’s not going to do a whole lot for your office comfort.
But as long as you take it easy and sprinkle small personal touches in here and there, it’ll go a long way towards making your workspace feel comfier. You’ll start to almost feel like you’re sitting at home when you’re surrounded by so many things that put a smile on your face.
Try Not to Spend Too Much Time at Your Desk
OK, so after everything that we’ve talked about thus far, you might be wondering why in the world we would say now that you should limit how much time you spend at your desk. With all the work you’ve put into it, wouldn’t you want to spend as much time as possible at your desk?
You should, of course, spend a good portion of your day at your desk. But with many experts nowadays referring to sitting as the “new smoking” because of all the health risks that can accompany it, you should try not to spend hours on end at your desk.
If you get into the habit of sitting for long stretches of time, it can lead to neck and back issues. It can also lead to things like high cholesterol and high blood pressure. And you might even end up becoming overweight or obese if you don’t get up every so often and move around.
It’s why you should avoid spending too much time at your desk during the workday. Every 30 minutes or so, you should get out of your office chair and walk around. You can run to make copies, talk to your coworkers, or grab a cup of coffee before returning to your desk to get back to work.
This is one of the keys as far as how to get comfortable at work. By limiting the amount of time you spend at your desk, you’ll make the time you do spend there more comfortable.
Learning How to Get Comfortable at Work Can Make a Big Difference
You may not want to spend eight hours (or more!) at work five days a week. But if you have to do it, you might as well try to be comfortable while you’re working, right?
By using the guide found here, you can learn how to get comfortable and stay comfortable for good. You can make your workspace feel so much cozier than it does now and show off a part of your personality in the process. Would you like to get your hands on more tips and tricks for turning yourself into a better employee at work? Read our blog to find them.