At the moment most of us are working from home instead of our usual cubical or if we’re lucky, personal office. I thought that it would be fascinating to find out more about offices, where most businesses take place and where research innovations come to light with an aim to see how productivity can be improved. It goes without saying that each office is different and operate within very different circumstances to each other so not all of the following will apply.

Offices have high CO₂ levels

So what you may ask? It’s not a surprise that offices have higher levels of CO₂ as people breath out the stuff and are tightly packed together. Well, a recent study found that most offices lost 15% of their decision-making power to higher CO₂ levels. Given that a vast chunk of human achievement is made from work in office buildings, maybe it’s time to open a window and boost your productivity.

We’re also being distracted

Some of you will be shocked to discover that office workers spend an average of 1.7 days a week on social media or non-work activities. While some downtime is undoubtedly needed to keep us focused, this is taking it to another level. The addictive effects of social media mean that it can be easy for us to get lost in virtual space.

If you find yourself in this position, then read up on some techniques to boost productivity and reduce distractions, point 3 is particularly useful for combating such a problem. If you are an employer and are concerned about this, then Workplace Insight has found that scheduled 15-minute media social media breaks improve office productivity as your employees will be able to segment their time on and off social media.

Emails, Smartphones and Multi-tasking

On a similar note to the previous point, we spend a lot of time checking up on things that distract us, which makes us switch our focus rapidly. The most way to work through any set of tasks is to, as much as it possible, break them down and tackle them one at a time. Complete the first task before moving on to the second and so on. Emailing and smartphones will force us to split our attention which will lower our overall productivity.

The remedy to this problem is simple, block out time to check and answer emails to get the most done. There are plenty of setting that you can play with to control when and from who you can receive notifications. You can rest easy that your supervisor will be able to flag anything vital and get your work done in peace.

Do you have any nuggets of wisdom to share with your fellow office workers? Then comment them below and see what we can learn from each other.