A bedroom office is likely not your first choice when it comes to working from home. There are many reasons why working in your bedroom would be undesirable, such as dirty clothes, confined space, bad lighting, and electronics affecting your sleep quality. A separate home office would preserve the restfulness of your bedroom. But when logistics are limited, we have to maximize what we have. A bedroom can be used as a multifunctional space for rest and work.

After having set up your bedroom office environment for utmost productivity, the next step is thriving in your space. Being productive in your bedroom is possible when you employ the right habits and strategies.

Here, we look at 12 habits and strategies that will transform your productivity in your bedroom.

1. Work in the Right Locations

Where you choose to work is everything when it comes to productivity. If you make a habit of working from your bed, your brain may start associating it with work rather than sleep. What comes with work is stress and the thought of unmet deadlines. Rather, you want to locate your desk away from your bed, perhaps near a window for sunlight or an unused corner.

Therefore when you work, ensure that your desk does not feel too confined or cluttered. Some people do not thrive in smaller, enclosed spaces – open environments would work better.

Hence, a good habit to have, when you feel confined and constrained, is to switch between different spots in your bedroom office (and your apartment). For this purpose, it is really beneficial to have a standing desk. An adjustable standing desk lets you switch between sitting and standing. Alternatively, a standing desk can be a wall-mounted corner shelf in your bedroom to save space. If you need to switch between desks or corners that are designated for work, do that to stay productive.

More importantly, get out to take a walk, get sunlight regularly, and exercise. Not many people can concentrate for long hours in their bedroom office. Alternate between your home and the nearby coffee shop or library. 

When productivity dips, move.

2. Minimize Distractions (Be Ruthless at this)

Minimizing distractions in the bedroom can be extremely hard. The Internet, video games, and our mobile devices form the distracting mediums of entertainment in the bedroom. 

Some productivity gurus have gone to extremes to suggest the smashing of video games and personal devices that are pure distractions. 

A gentler approach would be to lock your phone in your drawer or put it on silent mode until your work is complete. 

Some of us have to use our mobile devices and the Internet to work and communicate with our colleagues. So we can’t put our phones away.

Another idea to manage digital distractions is to block distracting websites by using apps like RescueTime. 

Apps like RescueTime can also automatically track the way we distribute our time across apps, websites, and specific work documents.

3. Use a Stopwatch or Timer

Let’s face it – working in the bedroom requires a ton of self-discipline. It is easy to lose track of time and motivation. If you need your devices anyway, you might as well take advantage of them. 

Your stopwatch or timer will sound off to tell you when to take breaks, and when to resume working. The Pomodoro technique suggests that you work on 1 task for 25 minutes at a time before taking a 5-minute break to move about. Set your timer, and when the alert goes off, you know exactly what you must do. Your lethargic brain simply responds to the beeping sound, executes, and work gets done.

4. Work Standing at least 1-2 Hours a Day

Self-discipline is more difficult when working in your bedroom compared to your company’s office. Sitting will become too comfortable. You are almost guaranteed to fall into sleepy states.

Here’s where a standing desk comes into play. Even if you are not convinced of the risks of prolonged sitting, standing can work wonders and improve your productivity. 

This is because standing sends a signal that tells your body to “switch on”, reduces blood sugar spikes compared to sitting, creates a sense of urgency, and helps you persevere through deep work by providing another option when sitting gets tiring. Post-lunch and evening hours can be great for standing desk work.

Even if you are not financially able to afford a standing desk, there are cheaper alternatives that can convert your desk into a standing workspace.

Do not underestimate how standing and moving add to your productivity.

5. Process Difficult Emotions During the Day (Not at Night)

You may belittle the act of processing emotions during the day. In fact, we often make a habit of repressing our emotions during the day, given our stressful working lives. 

Yet, when you work in your bedroom office, you need to consciously avoid negative emotions spilling over into the nighttime. As much as possible, you should preserve your boundaries for rest. 

This is because psychologically stressful activities cause an increase in the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol raises your alertness, and if it spikes in the evening, sleep can be obstructed.

Instead, process emotions during the day – set aside time to take a walk, journal, confront negative emotions, and communicate. During these hours, manage the demands of your bosses, deal with difficult clients, and attend to disruptive sales calls before they disrupt the flow of your evening. 

If you have to, deliberately schedule mentally taxing conversations with a business partner or family member during the day.

6. Meditate

If you tend to spend an entire day working in your bedroom, the hours pass quickly. It can be hard to distinguish one hour from another. 

Working from home is unlike working in the office, where you arrive, eat, attend meetings, and socialize with your colleagues at fixed and designated times. Working from home can seem like a blur. 

Needless to mention, we tend to get bombarded with calls, messages, urgent situations, and negative emotions. Such modern-day trivia creates a confused mind.

Meditation can help you stay mentally sharp and on top of your game. It is a practice used by many successful professionals like millionaires and many top-tier athletes. Instead of getting sucked in by the tiny details and emotions, you are able to separate the trivia from the important. 

Meditation helps you see your “battlefield” so that you can take the most important actions, connect the dots, and “rise above” your obstacles. 

In other words, it is all about staying sharp – even when you are working from your bedroom. No excuses.

7. Keep Different Bedroom “Zones” Separate

If you would like to work in your bedroom, you need to have different zones for different activities. Then, your brain learns not to make the wrong associations. 

When you are resting, you do not want to see work documents and screens reminding you of unfinished projects. When you are working, you do not want to be tempted to fall into a slumber. This is why it is better not to work on your bed – the same place where you sleep.

There are many ways to separate areas of your bedroom. You can install a curtain, and close it at the end of the workday to keep your desk out of sight. If you work in a closet office, shut the closet door when you call it a day.

At the minimum, follow good organizational principles. Work at the same desk and standing desk daily. Leave your bedroom office for breaks and recreation. Do your best to not mix activities and spaces that have no business with one another.

This article was originally published on unboundist.com. If it is now published on any other site, it was done without permission from the copyright owner.

8. Reduce Visual Clutter

If your room is tinier, using it as a multifunctional bedroom office can clutter it up. Unless you are a creative type who thrives in messy spaces, visual clutter in your bedroom is strictly a no-go. It disrupts both your restfulness and productivity. 

Seeing bulky furniture and smaller items lying around, such as cables, documents, and devices, disrupts your mental space.

Therefore, make a habit of cleaning your room. Alternatively, be a minimalist. Get rid of non-essential items, and make a habit of knowing where exactly you keep your daily, monthly, and annual items. Know them without a second thought. Learning storage skills and organizational skills, when it comes to living in a multifunctional space, can improve your quality of life for years.

9. Make Sleep a Priority After Working Hours

An underrated productivity “hack” is simply getting enough sleep. Enough sleep keeps your weight down, keeps your energy up, and makes you less irritable during your work day. Getting enough sleep in a bedroom office, however, is not that straightforward. 

It is tough to set the right boundaries for a good sleep when your bedroom is multifunctional – and productive for most of the day.

At the end of the day, you must convert your bedroom office back to a bedroom. This means that when the work is done, you need to change the mood and visuals: 

• Dim the lights, block blue light, go for a walk, shut down your computer, and keep your work out of sight. 
• Turn on the music or put on sports entertainment – put your body in a relaxed state.

If you are serious about being productive while working from home, do not mess with your circadian rhythms. Keep to a consistent sleep schedule. 

Working from home – from your bedroom – makes it hard not to wake up in the late morning. At night, you will be tempted to work late hours or use your electronics to wind down, watch recreational videos, or play video games. To keep your sleep-wake cycles in check, it really helps to set an alarm, which wakes you up at the same time every day (regardless of the time you fall asleep). This keeps your internal clock functioning properly.

The next point on managing blue light emitting devices helps with sleep.

10. Manage Blue Light

Electronics like laptops, tablets, and smartphones emit blue light. Such blue light improves alertness and performance but is counterproductive in the nighttime. They can disrupt your natural sleep-wake cycles. 

If you tend to look at screens during the night, use blue light blocking glasses or set up blue light filters on all of your devices. 

Set up night mode on your mobile phone and use relatively inexpensive apps like Flux or Iris on your computer.

Block out blue light, and ensure that you have a good night’s sleep so that you can have a blast the next morning.

11. Establish a Pre-Sleep Routine

Good routines are understated when it comes to working from home. When you spend time working from home, you essentially have the environment under your control to a large extent. This means you are able to execute healthy routines. No excuses. 

Instead, people often end up gaining weight, overeating, and not seeing positive changes in their health, output, and happiness.

When you wind down, a good pre-sleep routine can sensitize your body for sleep and anabolism. Do your favorite activities that are conducive to relaxation. Ultimately, anyone can establish their own pre-sleep routines but here are some quick ideas:

• Take a walk
• Take a bath
• Meditate
• Watch TV
• Read
• Journal
• Listen to music

Avoid stress. Distress during the night time is counterproductive; it only harms your health, and sleep, and ruins your next morning.

12. Manage Interruptions and the Invasion of Privacy

Last but not least, a productive bedroom office is protected against interruptions that come from other family members, your partner, friends, and even pets. You do not want your brain to associate your bedroom with people, communication, and socialization. 

Avoid getting interrupted by family members who might think that you are available to talk, by putting up a sign on your door. Alternatively, use smart lights to change the color lighting of your room, which tells your family members and friends that you are in work mode. Fend off disturbances firmly.

Conclusion

Lifestyle design is making the best use of every single day to achieve your goals. If you work in your bedroom, you can improve your productivity by 20-50% each day simply by executing the habits and strategies mentioned in this article. As mundane as practicing good bedroom office habits can be, they are underrated in importance.