Optimizing Workspace for Productivity, Focus, & Creativity

• Tip to manage office interruptions: if someone enters your office or workspace, acknowledge their presence but don’t shift your body or reorient yourself
• We weren’t designed to sit all day, but we shouldn’t stand all day either – a combination of about 50/50 is best
• Active workstations (e.g., cycle or treadmill) can improve attention and cognition for some tasks.

To build new habits & behaviours, leverage your body’s natural brain and body rhythms.

Phases of the day will invoke a shift in mood and mindset that are more conducive to building and keeping habits

Phase 1: 0-8 hours after waking up

• This phase comes with a more alert state which can be heightened by sunlight viewing, caffeine delaying, fasting, etc.
• Norepinephrine, epinephrine, and dopamine are elevated during this phase
• Healthy cortisol is also elevated in the brain and bloodstream
• This is when you want to take on new habits and behaviours that are challenging for you.

Phase 2: 9-15 hours after waking up

Levels of dopamine, epinephrine, and cortisol start to come down

Serotonin starts to rise and lends itself to a relaxed state of being – can be enhanced with a warm bath, yoga nidra, ashwagandha

Taper the amount of bright light (unless it’s sunlight) & start dimming house lights a bit

This is when you want to taper stress level and take on habits and things you are already doing that don’t require a lot of override of limbic friction – e.g., journaling, music

Phase 3: 16-24 hours after waking up

• Keep the environment very dark or dim & room temperature low
• The body needs to drop in temperature to fall asleep & stay asleep
• If you wake up in the middle of the night, use as little light as possible
• Deep sleep is critical to wiring neural circuits required for building habits

Vision and light are important components to set the brain in a high state of alertness

Being in a brightly lit environment can lend itself to increased productivity throughout the day, not just in the morning

Work in a space with as much overhead light as is safely possible

Lighting tip: During the first 0-9 hours of your day, work in a space with as much overhead light as possible to facilitate the release of dopamine, norepinephrine, epinephrine, and optimal amounts of cortisol

A ring light or light pad placed in front of you will also increase alertness and stimulate photons

• Placing your desk near a window – and opening a window if possible – will stimulate eyes and send “wake up” signal during the first 7-8 hours of the day
• Around 9-16 hours after waking, start dimming the environment: reduce blue light exposure, turn off overhead lights and turn on lamps or other lighting options in the workspace

Screen brightness: people have different retinal sensitivity, but you never want it to be painful to look at your screen.

Around 17-24 hours after waking (shift workers or students): 

• limit bright light to just enough that allows you to complete work to keep sleep and metabolism in the best shape possible;
• if you want/need to be very alert, make the environment as bright as possible
• It’s most ideal to stay awake during the day and sleep at night

All-nighter tip: drink a lot of water and don’t let yourself go to the bathroom

• Where you physically place a screen or book in your workspace plays an important role in alertness
•  When looking down toward the ground, neurons related to calm and sleepiness are activated
• Ideally, work while standing or seated, not laying in bed or on the couch
• Standing and sitting up straight while looking at a screen or book that is elevated will generate maximal levels of alertness
• You will create maximum alertness, focus, and cognition when you bring your eyes to a narrow point in space – keep the visual focus narrow, around the side of the head or right outside the eyes.

Cathedral effect: thinking becomes smaller and more constricted in tighter visual fields, and vice versa

High ceilings versus low ceilings: high ceilings elicit abstract thoughts and creativity whereas low ceilings promote detailed and concrete work

For Phase II (9-16 hours after waking creative work), work in a high ceiling room or outdoors; for detailed analytic work (ideally in Phase I 0-9 hours after waking), work in a lower ceiling environment or put in hoodie or hat to restrict the visual field.

• Listening to particular sounds and in particular, conditions can improve cognition
• Sometimes we want more background noise, sometimes we want less: our auditory tolerance can change from one day to the next and even fluctuate within the same day
• Background noise to avoid: the incessant humming of air conditioners or heaters can increase mental fatigue and decrease cognitive performance
• Even if we’re not registering background noise, our auditory system is processing

• Binaural beats place the brain into a state that is better for learning
• Binaural beats: playing one sound in one ear and a different sound in the other ear
• Low-frequency waves put the brain into a relaxed state versus high-frequency soundwaves which put the brain into more alert states
• Binaural beats (around 40 Hz) have been shown to increase cognition, relaxation, creativity, pain reduction, anxiety reduction

Distractions and things that take away from tasks aren’t just bad in the moment, it takes time to get brain waves back into attention and focus

Tip: if someone enters your office or workspace, acknowledge their presence but don’t shift your body or reorient yourself

Managing phone distractions: turn off the phone, put the phone on airplane mode, put the phone in a drawer or away from eyesight

• We weren’t designed to sit all day – but we also weren’t designed to stand all-day
• Just sitting for 5-8+ hours a day is terrible for us and can impact sleep, neck pain, cardiovascular system, muscular pressure
• A combination of sitting and standing throughout the day is best
• People who decrease sitting time show improvements to shoulder and neck pain, vitality, improvement in cognitive conditioning, and embracing new tasks

• There don’t seem to be any differences in cognitive tasks between cycling versus walking workstations
• Active workstations are better for some tasks, worse for others: there appear to be improvements in attention and cognition when using active workstations versus seated – however – verbal memory scores were worse during active workstations