How To Set Up A Healthy Home Workspace

As the novel coronavirus continues to spread, some companies have requested their
employees work remotely. employees already work from home occasionally, everyday
remote working may be a drastic shift for some employees, especially those not used to
producing away from the office. So we have a few tips to help you stay productive (and
sane) while clicking away at home.

Move often
“No matter what, you can overcome a not-so-great setup at home if you don’t stay there
very long and if you move around a lot,” said Martha Parker, ergonomist and project
manager at the Ergo Center.

Wherever you work, Parker recommends getting up and moving around every 20 to 30
minutes. Her preferred rule of thumb, which comes from current best-practices research, is
20/8/2: sit at your work station for 20 minutes, stand at your work station for eight minutes,
then walk around for two minutes. If you don’t have a sit-to-stand work station at home, sit
for 28 minutes then get up and walk around for two.

Similar measures can be taken to prevent eye strain, and ergonomists call it the 20/20/20
rule.

“We are made to look at the horizon and objects far away,” Parker said. “Looking at a
computer all the time can affect most people’s natural vision. Every 20 minutes, look at
something 20 feet away for 20 seconds to help your eyes readjust.”

To keep you on track, you can use a pomodoro timer — based on the pomodoro time
management technique — which can be bought in physical form or as an app on your
phone.

Set the tone

Two main factors that are important in the environment, from an ergonomist’s standpoint,
are light and sound. However, this can be the trickiest part to control, especially for those
who don’t have a dedicated workspace (such as an office) at home. During a COVID-19
quarantine, the environment can be especially challenging to adjust if you have young
children home from school.

“Try to limit distracting noises as best you can,” Parker said. “This might be difficult to
manage for your own personal focus, but you can limit distractions for others. For phone
calls and video meetings, use a good microphone and headphones that dampen ambient
noise. Some video conferencing services have virtual backgrounds that cover up visual
distractions behind you. And don’t forget: you can mute your microphone when you’re not
speaking during a call.”

Lighting may be easier to scontrol. If much of your work is done on a computer, try to place
your monitor 90 degrees from a window to minimize glare.

Get comfy
The best way to make your primary work zone comfortable is by focusing on two
dimensions: height and depth.
 “Most people don’t have an adjustable work surface at home, so they’re setting up at a
desk, the dining room table or the kitchen countertop. In 90 percent of these cases, the
height will not be right.”

How do you know when you’ve gotten the height right? The general rule of thumb is that
your shoulders and neck should be relaxed and your forearms should be approximately
parallel to the floor while you’re typing.

A quality chair should be height adjustable, have good support in the lower lumbar area of
your back and be the appropriate seat depth (meaning, you should be able to sit all the
way back in the chair and have about three fingers’ width of space between the chair and
the back of your knee).

Listen to your body

Following this advice can help you make your home workspace as close to optimal as you
can with limited resources. But you may still ask, “I really can’t work from the couch?”

“Everything is fine in short intervals, whether you sit on the living room floor, work on a
picnic table outside or even work from the couch,” Parker said. “Just remember to listen to
your body. If you’re uncomfortable or something feels a little funny, move around and do
something different.”

In conclusion, although workspace has some other inconvenience, it seems that the
advantages weigh more, since more and more companies are opting for this system when
it comes to establishing their working method. With the rapid advance experienced by new
technologies, it would not be surprising that, soon, certain jobs are carried out remotely,
from the worker's home.