We all know that our working environment affects our productivity, depending on the actual individual this can be quite extreme. For example, I can work at least 20% better and faster if the room I am in is totally clean, I can listen to soothing music, and get some insence going somewhere.

It’s not by chance that CEO-s and other high up managers have so individual looking rooms sometimes. Take a look at the Google HQ, where they embrace different workspaces, they don’t go for the cloned cubicle look. This is because they know that you are in your most productive state when you work in an environment best suited to you. Let me show you a few tips and tricks I use to give myself the boost I need, turn the page to see.

Stop and do something else

Many people advise you stop every hour and do something else for ten minutes. While this is probably the best from a bilogical view, I find it sometimes counter-productive. I would rather say, stop after the nearest completed action to an hour. If this takes two hours in the end, no problem, just make sure to take the time out to walk around, play with your dog, feed the cat, whatever you can. I myself play a piece on the piano, sing a song and strum along. If you work in front of a monitor you should really be standind up and going as far away as you can!

Stock up your favorite beverage

This is an absolute must for me. Sadly I do not follow good example and I don’t really like to drink just water. If I have plenty of ice cold ice tea, or some yummy fruit juice my productivity increases a lot! I mean having something to ease my tastebuds anytime during work gives me the comfort and the pleasure of knowing I have everything I need. On a health note, pure, cold water is best. Even if you have fruit juices, they still aren’t as healthy as they might seem.

Get as much sun exposure as you can

This one is especially true in cloudier months, where you general sunshine time isn’t too hight. You body is tuned to naturally go along with the Earth’s rotation, hence you get tired, less productive and you probably feel under the weather when it’s gloomy, and in the sunshine you tend to feel happy and much more productive. Use this to your advantage, drink your morning coffee on the terrace, use one of your breaks for a quick walk outside, simply open the curtains more. Apparently sunshine even prolongs you awake-state, meaning that if you get adequate sunshine exposure you can get up earlier and go to bed later without feeling worse than the day before.

Keep your desk the way you like it

I’m intentionally not writing tidy here as I accept that some people just hate tidying up and can work fine on a messy desk. I’m probably the most minimalistic guy, I have my monitor, my keyboard, my external drive and my mouse on my desk. Oh I also have my glass of ice tea nad one of those little guys who has grass growing out as hair. To me, having this tidyness on my desk is very important, I can’t think straight if I see stuff all over the place.

In my case this extends to the whole room, I don’t like to work when things are lying around all over the place. If you have similar issues, then take the time, even if it takes 20-30 minutes and work on the environment to form it exactly as you like it. You loose 20 minutes now, but you gain hours in productivity

Soothe yourself to increase productivity

There are a lot of tricks you can use to icnrease your productivity. What many people use is music. If you can listen to music while you work I strongly suggest instrumental music, ambient is best. The reason is that if you play tunes you really love and start humming or singing, your attention is being split. Ambient music has a sort of “tuneless” quality to it many times which makes it an ideal candidate. I listen to Enigma a lot, but you can also go for Enya or Conjure One.

If you can’t concentrate with music, but you need to shut out some noise, try going for some earbuds. 3M makes some really good ones that will drown out a lot of noise. They’re actually also really good for sleeping, give it a go and see how it feels.