How to create a mindful workspace or office? You have to embrace room diversity (like in a flexible office), add plants and decorations, reduce the amount of noise in your workplace, adjust the lighting, and give your employees time to use this workspace for practicing mindfulness. Do you want to learn more? Then keep reading!
How to Create a Mindful Workspace?
Let’s go through all the elements that mindful workspaces should have. Check which ones are already present in your office and add those that aren’t – this way, you will encourage embracing mindfulness at work.
Room Diversity
Every person needs different conditions to practice mindfulness. Therefore, you need to create an office space that provides various options.
When designing a mindful workspace, you have to adopt a sense-based approach. Let’s look at some examples:
- Hearing – For those most sensitive to hearing, you need to provide a space that is quiet, perhaps even soundproof. A good idea here is to utilize office phone booths or acoustic panels.
- Sight – In this case, you need to take care of the decor. Plain white walls won’t do the trick; instead, opt for some art and flowers. You should also remember to use different colors in your interior designs to appeal to more employees.
- Smell – Here, once again, it’s good to use flowers, but that’s not the only option. Scented candles or sticks will also do the job; even the smell of fresh coffee from the kitchen might help some people embrace mindfulness.
- Taste – Surprisingly enough, there is this practice called mindful eating – focusing on all the sensations that come with food, from touch and smell to taste. This is why it’s good to let your employees embrace it. What does it have to do with mindful workspace design? Well, for starters, you can place vending machines to give your employees lots of snacks to choose from!
- Touch – In this case, you should make sure that your office furniture is made from materials in various textures. A cozy blanket, a fluffy pillow, a hard chair – make sure there’s a variety of these.
Reducing the Noise
While not every office space has to be fully soundproof, all examples of truly mindful workspaces have one thing in common – moderate noise. Bad acoustics may lead to loud sounds, which in turn might be distracting and make focusing more difficult. Especially if your employees are trying to practice mindfulness.
Install acoustic panels and desk dividers, make sure that your walls aren’t plain, and you’ll see a drop in the intensity of noise in no time, thus creating the perfect space for your team members to practice mindfulness.
Adjust the Lighting
Proper lighting is better for eyesight and concentration, while bad lighting is the opposite. Thus, if you want to build a mindful workspace, you need to optimize your lighting intensity.
Consider using dimmer switches that your employees can use to adjust the light levels. Put some extra lamps into the office to give your workers options. Also, avoid using lightbulbs that are too bright.
Keep the Office Neat
In the heat of the corporate world, it’s often difficult to make sure that everything in your office is neat. Yet, you cannot overlook this.
A cluttered office might distract those practicing mindfulness. Thus, you need to make sure that the space is tidy and well-organized and that everything is easily accessible. You should also offer your employees places, e.g. drawers, to store their staff and equipment – it’ll help them focus when doing mindfulness exercises.
Support Mindfulness
No matter how you organize your workspace, it won’t be mindful until you make it and support this concept. Diverse spaces help only if you give your employees time to make use of them; better lighting sure helps people practice mindfulness, but they have to do so first. You cannot just adjust the space – you have to embrace the idea.
Tell your employees what mindfulness is and how to practice it. Let them know that they can take short breaks for mindful exercises. Show that you embrace mindfulness in your everyday interactions with the team. Only then can your workspace become truly mindful.
The Takeaway
We hope that with our examples, you know exactly how to design a mindful workspace. Reorganize your office and make it diverse while ensuring that your teams have the best conditions to work in. Tell them about mindfulness and show them how they can practice it. After all, the benefits of mindfulness for both mental health and productivity are worth it!
If you liked this article, we recommend reading our text on how to improve mindfulness at work!