A productive woman’s desk

The way you design and organize your workspace has a huge impact on your productivity. While searching for an ideal way to arrange your home office, you should consider your own unique needs, but you can also draw inspiration from the experts. Since March is a month dedicated to women (and research shows they are the productivity champions), we have decided to ask our collaborators for their tried and tested desk organizing tips as well as their favorite Oakywood products.

Productivity and your workspace

We have already covered the undeniable importance of ergonomics for your physical and mental health in our previous articles. The relationship between ergonomics and productivity is equally as significant. A well-designed and properly equipped space helps in preventing musculoskeletal injuries while having a positive influence on productivity and quality of your work. Since you don’t waste your energy on managing pain or discomfort, you can redirect it towards your work tasks and do them more creatively and efficiently.

Furthermore, missing just one element from the optimal workspace – the adequate lighting, temperature, humidity, noise levels (or silence levels), office equipment, or work tools – can contribute to increased stress levels, decrease in quality and productivity of work, as well as more frequent absences and staff rotation.

This is why it is vital to approach this subject seriously to ensure your home office is an ergonomic oasis of productivity.

Does a perfect desk exist?

To put it simply, the best desk is a desk that meets the individual needs of its user. These include, above all, the optimal measurements which make working at your desk not only productive and comfortable, but also healthy. A suitable desk height is, therefore, of key importance as it allows you to successfully prevent bad posture and pain in places such as your neck, wrists, and lower back.

When it comes to ergonomics and taking care of your spine, a desk with adjustable height is second to none – it is the best and most comfortable option. Thanks to the electronic height adjustment system and the possibility of saving preferred settings, our Standing Desks allow you to smoothly and quickly adapt the tabletop level to suit your own needs, and to easily change your position while working. Switching your posture between sitting and standing is a great alternative to being stuck in one, sedentary, often mildly slouched position, with your eyes dangerously close to the screen.

Besides the optimal desk height, the elevation of your monitor or laptop is also of the utmost significance. In this case, accessories such as the Desk Shelf, Monitor Stand, or Laptop Stand come incredibly helpful as they allow you to position the upper edge of the screen to be at the same level as your eyeline.

Making sure the dimensions of your tabletop are appropriate for your needs and space is also something that should be considered carefully. A desk that is too small will be uncomfortable for someone whose job requires them to use a few devices, whereas a large desk can easily overwhelm a tiny space. The best solution for this problem is taking accurate measurements of your interior and ordering a custom desk (our configurator is an excellent tool to assist you with this task).

Organizing your space while working remotely

Since we have already established what makes a top-tier desk, lets focus on productivity’s best friend – organization. While preparing your desk arrangement, it is important to remember that less is more – too many accessories (even those meant to aid organization) can introduce chaos into your workspace. Therefore, choosing functional and aesthetically cohesive organizers matters substantially. Our OakyBlocks, a line of wooden organizers with built-in magnets, allow you to freely combine and customize your setup to best reflect your needs and the surface you work on.

There is no room for unsightly cables and tangled cords in a well-organized workspace. An underdesk organizer can help you keep them out of sight, while a wireless charger or a docking station for your smartphone or laptop can eliminate a significant amount of clutter – elevating your comfort.

Don’t forget to provide your wrists with proper support – carpal tunnel syndrome is a common ailment amongst people working in front of a computer. Simply coordinating the heights of your desk with your chair are enough to ‘do the job’. If you want to go a step further, however, consider equipping your desk with pads to take the excess pressure from your wrists while at work.

In your pursuit of productivity, as in everything else, moderation is the key to avoiding falling into a toxic headspace. One thing is for sure: good organization and a comfortable ergonomic home office are some of the most important ingredients needed to achieve healthy productivity. We hope that the advice and setups of our #OakyGirls have inspired you to rediscover your workspace.

This is just the first post from our March-long series dedicated to women and their experiences with remote work, space organization, design, and ergonomics – so stay tuned!

Learn more about #OakyGirls here.