You spend one-third of your life at work, but how much of that time do you actually spend working?
I’m sure your boss doesn’t want to know the answer to that question.
But if you’re ready to turn around your productivity levels, it all starts at your desk. Your desk is where you spend the majority of your working day.
Here are nine awesome desks hacks to improve productivity and make work more fun.
1. Use a Standing Desk or Riser
Let’s face it, sitting in the same position all day gets uncomfortable and boring. And when you become bored and uncomfortable, your productivity starts to diminish.
Switch up your workspace with either a standing cubicle desk or riser.
Standing desks help improve productivity levels along with your general health. By standing up, you will become more attentive, awake, and in a better mood. But try to find a desk that you can transform to a sitting desk when you get tired of standing.
Monitor risers sit on your desk and raise the position of your computer monitor or laptop. Look at the monitor your reading this on, is it eye-level? If not you can improve your productivity and your posture by raising your monitor to eye-level.
2. Label and Organize Your Cords
Do you ever waste time trying to figure out which cord goes to which device among your tangled web of electronics?
Save yourself time and frustration by labeling and organizing your cords.
Labeling your cords with bread tag or tape. You can use a color identification method or write directly on the bread tag or tape. Be safe and do both!
Organizing your cords is one of the basic office organization hacks. Bundling with zip ties or twist ties is one of the easiest ways to organize cords. Keep the extra length of the cord bundled together and bundle the whole length of the cord when not in use.
3. Embrace Whiteboard Paint
If you’re a visual person, you need room to sketch and write out your ideas. Don’t let your productivity be confined to sticky notes.
Choose a section of your wall closest to your desk and start painting. Once the paint dries you’ll have a much larger space to work on. Just don’t forget to get permission from your boss first!
Work in a cubicle and don’t have a paintable wall? An old-fashioned whiteboard will still give you a creative space to work.
4. Get Techy
One of the best ways to improve productivity in the workplace is to make your space work with your needs. Customize your technology to help you become more efficient less effort.
Use time tracking tools to monitor your productivity. These tools can track how much time you spent on certain websites, like your company’s business page or your own Facebook account. Monitor your habits and adjust your workflow if you notice you are less productive at certain times of the day.
Do you ever reach for your USB or flash drive and realize it isn’t there? This leads to a long search of tracing your steps to figure out where you left it. With custom USB drives, everyone will know who the drive belongs to and it will easily make its way back to your desk.
5. Soak in the Sunlight
Soaking in the sunlight while you are working improves your overall health and productivity.
If you work in an office with a window, rearrange your desk to take full advantage of the sun. Keep your blinds open and position yourself so you are facing the window while you work. If the weather permits, open the window for the added benefits of fresh air.
If you aren’t lucky enough to work near a window, there are still ways to get artificial sunlight at your desk. Artificial sunlight lamps offer the health benefits of the sun in even the darkest of offices.
6. Go Green with Plants
Just like the sun, plants offer similar productivity and health benefits.
Incorporate a houseplant into your working space. Try getting a succulent, spider plant, snake plant, or a ficus tree. All of these plants thrive indoors. Avoid flowering plants as a coworker may suffer from allergies.
Read here to learn about how to best take care of your indoor plants.
7. Utilize Binder Clips
Binder clips come in handy for a number of different office hacks.
Attach a magnet to the back and use a binder clip to hold up large amounts of paperwork. Attach a binder clip to your wall and use it as a place to store your headphones.
Stabilize a wobbly keyboard with a binder clip used as the foot. You can even attach a binder clip to the edge of your desk to keep cords handy and in reach.
What creative use can you find for a binder clip?
8. Seek Soothing Sounds
Having the right background noise can make all the difference when it comes to productivity.
Look for music without lyrics, the lyrics tend to distract you as you work. Often times, movie or video game soundtracks work great to keep you engaged in your task. If you’re not a music person, try ambient sounds like ocean waves or even just white noise.
Find that you work best without any noise and distractions? Use soundproof headphones! These will keep all the distracting noise out and your coworkers will avoid talking to you while you’re wearing them.
9. Prioritize with a Planner
Even with all the office hacks in the world you still need to prioritize your tasks with a planner.
Get a large planner with lots of room to write down activities. Find one that separates your days into hours and has extra room for notes.
Then use color-coded pens to jot down everything! Keep track of meetings, project deadlines, important emails and everything else time-sensitive.
Turn Desk Hacks into Life Hacks
Now that you know the best desk hacks to increase productivity, spread these hacks to other areas of your life.
Does your living room provide enough sunlight? Do you have plants scattered around your house? What about a whiteboard area in your kitchen to jot down grocery lists and reminders?
Want to learn more? Read about the ten simple life hacks everyone should know.