Getting Stuff Done: How Simplifying Your Work Space Improves Productivity

Before I get onto today’s post I want to apologize for being missing in action. I’ve had a massive cold of doom and a throat infection on top, so as you can imagine I’ve been feeling pretty rubbish and not up to writing much. Thankfully I’m on the mend and I appreciate your patience.

During my foray into man sized tissues, honey and warm lemon I haven’t been idle. I’ve been working at finding a way to improve my productivity so I can carry on juggling my workload. As someone who works from home, surrounded by toddlers most days, it’s a struggle to maintain focus and get stuff done but I believe I’ve found the key – a surprisingly simple one.

It’s A Question of Where You Work

Up until a few days ago, the majority of my work was done from my sofa. I live in a small house with the limbs of small people poking out of several spaces at any one time, so my solution was to curl up in the corner of my sofa and tap away on my laptop.

There’s a few problems with this approach:

It gets pretty uncomfortable after about 30 minutes
Small people usually find their way onto my lap (or my shoulders, my head…you get the idea)
It makes me sleepy (I have a really comfy sofa)
It makes me procrastinate (yay BBC News 24, let’s watch the weather again, how very British)
It makes me not want to work

So working on the sofa doesn’t a productive freelancer make. Wouldn’t you say so?

Cheap Is Not Cheerful

You might be thinking the obvious here – why didn’t I get a desk? The answer is I had one at one point. A really small, wobbly thing that was the only thing I could afford at the time and which filled the small space in my living room I had to work with.

Unfortunately it broke because it was crap.

This made me look at the situation in a different angle. Because of my budget I couldn’t afford to get something massively expensive. I certainly couldn’t afford to go for managed print services or fancy equipment to make my life easier. Due to my limited space I couldn’t get something massive and it would need to have plenty of storage. Lastly because my children like to climb on things, I’d need something that was strong, robust and of excellent quality.

Enter Kit Out My Office

With my criteria in hand, I went trawling the internet for a brand or company that I feel could provide something that would fit my needs. My plan was to approach this company with an offer of an honest and open review here on my blog in exchange for a discount on a desk. I figured that a review of a desk would be useful for you guys. Don’t shoot me if it’s not!

My first pitch was to kitoutmyoffice.com. These guys sell some seriously awesome looking desks. What’s more their UCLIC range is made here in the UK – something which appeals to my patriotic side. To top it off they did this bad boy which would completely solve my storage problems.

With my pitch sent, it was a case of waiting. I didn’t for an instant believe anyone would get back to me. I mean it’s not exactly a cheap desk. What I didn’t expect was them to offer the thing to me for free! Sympathetic to my cause the very next day I revived several packages which made up the workspace of doom.

Getting Clicky With It

This is the space I had to work with:

As you can see it’s not the biggest of spaces to assemble a home office. It’s literally just a small wall in my living room, however I measured everything beforehand and knew that the science said it would fit. So I was content.

Putting the desk together was a bit like baking a cake only you cut out the messy mixing of ingredients bit, and get to put the finishing touches on instead. Considering I was in full blown man-flu mode this is no simple thing. Assembling the base took only 6 screws – everything clicked seamlessly together without so much as a sigh of despair or a thrown screwdriver.

In an effort to be completely honest, I have to say both me and the other half struggled putting the top storage unit together on the first try. By this time it was 10 pm and we had snot pouring out of countless body parts. I burst into tears at the drama of a groove not aligning and we called it a night.

The next day, first attempt and we had the thing built. Result! Door hinges, shelves, everything clicked into place and we felt like masters of the flat-pack universe. And I have to say, it looks bloody gorgeous.

To put things into perspective, I managed to fit the entire contents of my bookcase in this beauty and still had space to stash the kids coloring books. The entire thing is solid (and heavy), while the top can be secured to the base with metal brackets.

And My Productivity?

My productivity isn’t even an issue anymore. Now that I’ve got somewhere that’s entirely mine (regardless of the toys scattered across the desk), I can happily sit here and shut off for an hour, working on a deadline or a project that needs my attention.

It puts me in an entirely different mindset, while decluttering my living room from the detritus of my work. No wires, no paperwork scattered across the sofa, no coffee mugs on the floor waiting to be knocked over and no urge to watch another round of the weather report (I can’t even see the TV from here).

Simplifying the space in which you work, really can improve your performance but it’s important to not disregard quality purely for its price tag. At around £360 there’s no doubt in my mind that I would personally buy this desk with my own money. It’s worth that and more due to the time that it’s saved me.

Simplicity doesn’t have to mean cheap. When it comes to your work, it’s the quality that matters. What’s your work space like and how could you improve yours?

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