The new normal is a significant departure from the usual to which we have become accustomed. It has made it more difficult for most of us to preserve the clear distinction that we try to keep between our personal lives and our professional lives. Since we all work from home now, having a location that is solely devoted to work is more crucial than it has ever been.

Imagine the following. In your pajamas, slouched on the sofa, and furiously pecking away on your laptop. Or, you may have the laptop poised dangerously on the kitchen table as you pour yourself some orange juice and have a sandwich. Do you get the feeling that this is a scene that you’ve seen before?

So, it would be you. That would be me. These days, the vast majority of us can relate to it. Since we are required to do our jobs inside the constraints of our own homes, we are no longer in a position to distinguish between the professional and personal portions of our days. The fact that we live and work in the same place is, to put it plainly, a formula for long-term failure in both endeavors.

The mixing of business and personal matters may at first seem to be a significant challenge, but it will quickly merge into one massive day during which you will be unable to distinguish between the two. You will discover that it is difficult for you to get things done on time, and you will often have to contend with a mind that is not focused.

1.The Psychology of Physical Space

We build cognitive biases about and about the physical environments that we find ourselves in every day, even if we don’t usually pay any attention to the fact that these biases are developing in us. These are of great assistance to us in preserving order and a feeling of purpose throughout all of our spaces.

An office, a bedroom, a kitchen, and a balcony are included in the space. Otherwise, they are all simply floors, walls, and ceilings. The configuration of each of them is what gives them their individual identities. We assign a function to each room, and then we decorate them such that they fulfill that function. And each time you enter a space, the way it is laid up and decorated will remind you of the exact goal you were intending to achieve and will motivate you to do so.

When you do things around the home in various rooms, you obscure the function of each of these separate physical locations in a way that you usually wouldn’t. If you do your job in the kitchen, does it mean the space no longer functions as a kitchen but rather as an office? When it comes to how your mind interprets things, you can no longer distinguish between the two in any meaningful way.

The fact that you are now in a kitchen setting is the cue that your mind picks up on, despite the fact that you are commanding it to focus on work-related tasks. You can probably anticipate why it would be so easy for you to get distracted in such a setting, given that the surroundings are not distinct for either of the activities you are engaged in.

2. Dedicated workspaces reduce distractions and help you focus.

Consider the reasons behind why each of us was assigned to a certain workplace to begin with. The physical architecture of the infrastructure was intended to assist us in concentrating only on the job at hand rather than on anything else.

In a similar vein, when you work from home but have a separate room designated as your workstation, you are effectively separated from the personal aspects of your life. You are now experiencing the identical sensations that you experience when you are seated at your desk at your workplace. But now you find yourself at the workplace you have in your house.

Your work atmosphere will seem more legitimate if you have a dedicated office space, even if it’s only a corner of your living room, or if you have any other kind of home-based office arrangement. You are not in a position where you may be tempted to engage in activities that are unrelated to your employment.

Since you are already seated at your home office and your attention is directed in that direction, you no longer give any thought to eating an unexpected snack or doing a fast round of browsing social media.

Being in a setting that has the characteristics of a working environment triggers your brain to think about and concentrate on work. When you take yourself away from the day-to-day activities of your home life, you will almost immediately discover that you are far less distracted and significantly more focused than you were before.

3. You are more productive when you have a proper workspace.

It is quite essential for your job efficiency to have a dedicated office area that is compartmentalized from the rest of your home’s living quarters. You need to be able to get access to work-related materials that are accessible whenever you need them over the course of a workday.

If you work in a consistent location rather than one that changes often, it will be easier to establish a routine and bring consistency to your work.

When you do your job at an appropriate workstation, you will noticeably improve the degree to which things are ordered and in order. This will have an effect, both positive and negative, on your productivity and performance.

After you have personalized your workstation to a high degree, you are more likely to just link it with your job and nothing else.

When you sit down to work at a workstation that you have created just for yourself, you immediately become more productive due to the fact that this is the only objective you have in mind.

If you are having problems getting the most out of your time spent away from the office but still want to be as productive as possible, read this.

4. There is a sense of discipline when you have a home workstation.

You will be more disciplined with the amount of time that you spend working if you have a designated workspace in your own home, just as you would be if you were working in an office setting. You are also less likely to get distracted, which means that you are more likely to adhere to your discipline and get the task done in accordance with it.

Whether you share a house with roommates or are a parent with children, there are certain to be events in your life that divert your focus away from the tasks at hand. If you have a location that is dedicated only to your job, then the activities that you carry out there will be strictly professional in nature.

When you have a room that is solely devoted to your job, you have a natural tendency to set limits for yourself and become more focused on what you are doing. When you establish physical limits, you also establish mental boundaries, and you find that you no longer wander from the duties you need to do at work in order to think about other things.

5. You hurt your health when you choose to work from anywhere and everywhere.

Your health may be negatively impacted if you do not have a home office space, regardless of whether this space is an entirely separate room or a portion of another space in your house. Both in terms of the body and the mind.

When you are working from a seated position, whether it be on the sofa, in a bean bag, at the dining table, or anywhere else, you have a tendency to not concentrate on your posture. The effects of sitting in an awkward position for extended periods of time are easily apparent in several ways. The most prevalent side effects of this condition are aches and pains in the back and neck, cramping in the legs and hands, and headaches.

That is due to the fact that none of them are made for sitting for extended periods of time while working. Are you familiar with this term? A combination desk and chair for use in the workplace. This is due to the fact that their height, design, and construction are all intended to make your working experience more pleasant.

According to the results of a poll conducted by a researcher at the University of Cincinnati, more than seventy-five percent of individuals who work from home do so while hunched over their computers. According to the findings of the research, this results in an extra pressure of around 10 pounds for every inch of forward or downward drop. That does not sound very nice, does it?

6. A dedicated workspace at home helps with work-life balance.

If you have a specific room in your house designated as an office, it will be much simpler for you to turn off work mode when the day is done. You won’t be bringing that energy into your own life in any way, shape, or form. When we were working away from our workplaces, we all made it a point to maintain a healthy balance between our professional and personal lives. Why should our mindset change while we’re working from the comfort of our own homes?

It is far simpler to overwork yourself and bring on burnout if you do your business from a private setting such as your bedroom, living room, or any other location. This is due to the fact that there is no conceptual separation between your personal life and the one you lead outside of work.

One of the primary reasons for this is that there is not a physical barrier that separates the two. The mental and physical barriers complement one another in assisting you in maintaining a divide between your job life and your personal life.

It will be a lot simpler for you to go between working and not working if you have a certain location that is set apart just for that purpose. This is due to the fact that if you are not at your home office, you have a tendency to disengage from things that are relevant to work. When you are back in that environment, the only thing on your mind is likely to be work. Simply said, this is how mental conditioning works in our lives.

When our professional and personal lives occurred in separate locations, it was already challenging for some of us to do that. Just try to fathom how much more challenging it would be if they constantly overlapped one another’s schedules.

In Summary…

The partitioning of our private and professional lives into two distinct spheres has a significant impact on how we evaluate both of these aspects of our lives. A separate area in our house that we may use as an office and having a workstation there both assist us in preserving that distinction between the two.

If you don’t make an effort to keep your personal life and professional life distinct, you may find that you are unable to get your mind off of work while you are engaged in activities related to your personal life. A devoted workstation is an absolute necessity for achieving high levels of productivity, maintaining one’s health, and striking an appropriate balance between work and personal life.