In my past few posts, we have considered our working environment. The place we go to get things done. We’ve considered why it matters – because this kind of basic stuff undergirds and supports everything. The best productivity system and carefully considered plan can be rent asunder by a chair that causes severe back pain. We’ve thought about optimising our workstation, optimising our general environment and area and reducing distraction. But that is all well and good. That all assumes that we can actually influence these things. This brings me to Work Environment Matters | Focus Four – When you can’t control it.
Sometimes, things are beyond our control
The cold, hard reality of working life is that sometimes we just cannot control these things. We are limited by our budget, by our physical space available and of course by the policies and hierarchy of our company or organisation.
Some times, it can seem like we just have no control. In reality this isn’t true and so I offer some wisdom today. There are three things that you can do.
Be creative in changing what you can
The first is to make whatever changes that you can and to be creative about it. For example, you can buy a lamp to control the lighting or you can wear headphones playing music or use one of those websites that will accurately re-create the background noise of coffee shop for you. I’ve tried this and it is actually quite good.
Bigger things like changing your desk or chair are harder to achieve but even in big open plan offices, talking with your boss or office manager can yield results if things are really problematic for you. I’ve worked in Health & Safety within an organisation a few times and your employer has a duty of care to your welfare here. If your request is reasonable and prevents significant discomfort or pain, many bosses can be quite reasonable about it themselves.
How can you adapt to your environment?
The second thing that you can do is to train yourself to adapt to your environment for the purposes of doing focussed work. I don’t just mean toughen up, make do, get on and stop whining.
There are things that you can do to help your mind with this. For example, I know one person that always listens to certain, and specific, music when he wants to focus and now this has become the key thing that gets him in the zone. Or it could be something like nipping out to make or buy a particular drink that you use as a mental trigger that now is the time to get to work. Over time, it is possible to train yourself to these things so that they become a key part of getting you into focus mode.
Or, it could be something more simple like a quick tidy up of your desk space or saving work and closing all apps apart from those you need. Anything that can work to persuade your mind that now is the time to work. Your environment may not be that great for focussed concentration. But, you can train your mind with these mental triggers and work around the problem.
Change it up altogether
The last thing you can do, and this may not be viable for everyone, is to change your environment altogether. For example, in my previous big job, sometimes when I needed to really focus and my disastrous office would not cut it, I would move to a different, and empty, meeting room in the building. This may be possible for you to try. Sometimes, I would move to a coffee shop or hotel cafe area to really focus in on something. At this time, I lived alone, and so working from home one afternoon a week was a viable option for me to really get focussed.
Our environment really does matter and if we use a combination of these tactics outlined in the previous posts, as well as those in this one, we can adapt our environment to meet our needs, and adapt ourselves to our environment in order to ensure that our working environment is as effective as it could possibly be.
So, Work Environment Matters | Focus Four – When you can’t control it. Hopefully some of the tips here have been helpful.
