Most people love the idea of working from home. You have access to whatever food you want for lunch, you decide when to get out of bed, and whether or not it's worth getting dressed for the day. While it does have many benefits, working from home has one huge disadvantage: distractions. Making your home office, living room, or bedroom a productive place to work is difficult, but it can be accomplished. Ultimately, your productivity is a matter of motivating yourself to work. But being in the right environment is still vital to creating a distraction free workplace. Whether you're self-employed, have a hobby that requires a home office, or just need a quiet place to do some paperwork, having a minimal home office can be vital to getting the job done. In this article, we'll cover all the elements needed to creating a simplistic workspace where you'll feel comfortable but still focused enough to work.

Setting the mood

Are you the type of person who works best in a well-lit room or do the lights need to be slightly dimmed? Depending on your preferences, you might want to choose a room that receives a lot of sunlight or convert part of your basement to an office. When it comes to wall and furniture colors, studies have shown that different colors can affect our mood. Depending on the atmosphere you're going for, you might choose white, light grey, or light blue wall colors. Bold colors will probably be too distracting and bright red colors can even be anxiety inducing. Try building a color palette online and deciding which color combinations you would enjoy for the walls of your office.

Avoiding distractions

You want your office to be sparsely decorated and free of distractions like games, phones, food, etc. However, for some people an empty room is even more distracting than a cluttered one. A good way to fill up the room without adding distractions is to incorporate plants and simple artwork. When choosing plants for your office, consider the amount of sunlight the room receives. It's possible to incorporate plant life without having to worry about moving them to receive sunlight. Similarly, there are cacti, succulents, and terrariums that require little upkeep and watering. You don't want to give yourself excuses for not working by telling yourself you need to water the plants.

Setting up your desk

Being productive is all about having a routine. You want your desk to help you stick to that routine. That means it should have everything you need to work and little, if anything, else. Aside from encouraging you to focus on your work, having a cluttered desk can also make it difficult to find what you need like a lost pen or a certain important piece of paper. Once you have your desk set up with what you need, be it a laptop, power cord, lamp, etc., then it's your job to keep it that way and avoid any rubbish from building up.