Where you put your desk is costing you more than you think.

We’ve probably all been there or know someone who has.. you needed to create a dedicated workspace, so you took the only desk you had (a big improvement from the dining room table!) and placed it as close as you could to the plug point, but your back isn’t against the wall.

It’s efficient, it’s tidy.. but does it really work?

 

A quick decision that seemed to solve your problem that became a long-term placement, and yet, you can’t shake that restlessness, that feeling of uneasiness, but you don’t know why.

You can’t figure out why you struggle to focus, and why you can’t be disciplined enough to be more productive (cue the latest, trending productivity app that costs a small fortune and has you tied in indefinitely with mystery credit card charges).

The problem isn’t you. It’s your location.

 

And no, not geographically (though I’m sure a lot of entrepreneurs, myself included, would love to relocate to the coast).

It’s the position of your desk that’s causing a lot of the trouble.

Every time someone walks past your space, your nervous system reacts, for the simple reason that you don’t have a solid surface behind you, you feel exposed and that you’re on constant alert for potential danger.

 

This is explained by the Prospect-Refuge Theory, developed by environmental psychologist Jay Appleton in 1975, which describes how your nervous system continuously scans for safety cues, often without you being consciously aware of it.

 

So, where is your desk right now, relative to the door, relative to the room, relative to movement?

 

If it’s positioned incorrectly, a simple fix is to turn your desk around so that you have a wall or solid surface behind you, while you face the entrance or door. This signals your brain that it can relax its vigilance, and you can go about your day, giving your work your full attention.

 

This is where you start to see the difference between a desk and a Command Zone.

A desk is a surface where you place your laptop, but a Command Zone is a workspace that has been deliberately positioned and organised to reduce cognitive load, supports sustained focus and signals a clear message to your brain: this is where serious work happens.

 

Positioning your desk correctly costs you nothing, and you should produce a noticeable result within a short time, but this is just one, critical layer of the Command Zone principle.

Take my 2-minute quiz called ‘What’s your Workspace Productivity Personality’, to find out which are the next best design decisions for you to make: https://dezyna.com/quiz/

 

Let’s design the spaces that fit the life you’re actually living, not the one on the vision board.

Chat soon,

N