How To Spice Up Your Home Office This Phase 2: Heightened Alert Season

Working from home is either a blessing or a curse, with no in-between. From conference calls with fuzzy static to buttock aches from sitting in your creaky IKEA chair for too long, working from your home is most likely a bane for your body despite your bed being just 10 meters away from your work laptop.

In this article, we bring you a few handy tips to jazz up your working space at home. Whether you have the privilege of owning a fully-fledged study room dedicated to your capitalist ventures or simply a nook in your messy bedroom, you can still upgrade your working space for an easier working experience from home.

Who said working in comfort is only for those with big homes?

Add Plants To Your Workspace

Plants help to freshen up stale air in your musty living room, especially with the recent heat waves and still air which makes sitting at home with a single fan extremely stuffy.

They also provide a nice visual distraction from your glaring laptop screen, which provides some visual relief for your strained eyes.

Small, cut plants like succulents are wonderful for workspaces as they are low maintenance and require very little watering and are still pleasing to the eye.

More enthusiastic potential plant parents can adopt herbs such as thai basil, mint, lavender or dill, all of which have a mild, pleasant smell that could also help you to relax.

However, if you are a pet owner be sure to do some research to see if your plants of choice are pet friendly, as some pets are allergic to certain species of plants and could cause adverse reactions.

Mechanical Keyboard

This item is not so much a necessity for your home workspace but is more a novelty item that could keep you engaged while working.

Mechanical keyboards make a lovely clickity clackity sound when you type, which I personally find wonderfully satisfying. These keyboards can also be custom modified according to your aesthetic preferences and sound preferences, which could be a fun hobby for you to engage in while also elevating your workspace at home.

The keyboards come either wired or wireless as well, and so cater to a variety of preferences.

Lamps

Some of us are not blessed enough to have natural sunlight illuminating our homes every weekday of the week to keep us productive and from feeling sluggish at home, so a lamp is a wonderful addition if you’re like a plant and need some light for that extra boost of energy.

While a traditional desk lamp works great if you have a makeshift desk carved out from a random corner in your room or your kitchen counter, those who have the luxury of a more permanent space can instead opt for LED light strips, which take up less space, can be removed at any time and are easy to install.

Backrest

Own an old, rickety IKEA dining table chair? Fret not! Simply get a backrest that supports your lower back to ensure better posture for the miserable weekdays in front of your laptop.

Otherwise, you can get a thick chair cushion to save your bottom from the dreaded dull ache in your bum.

I would recommend a nice rollie chair which has adequate back support, but many of us probably work at or dining table with this morning’s breakfast out cold in front of you and water puddles from one too many iced coffees, so a grand rollie chair throne probably isn’t the most ideal piece of furniture to bring back home.

Desk Fan

It’s already a pain to work at home, what more without air conditioning? Not many would keep their air conditioning on from 8 am - 6 pm, which would most probably cause your electricity to skyrocket to the moon.

Standing fans sometimes don't really cut it because the weather may be too warm and humid, and the fan simply circulates hot air around you. A desk fan which is like a mini air cooler does wonders for the days when it’s 35 degrees out, and blasts cool air which is comparable to sitting in front of an air conditioner because you’re so close to it.