👩🏻💻Create a calm and focused work environment (part 1)
Tend to Self is a newsletter and YouTube channel by Alison Zamora, offering reflections on unlearning, self-discovery, and personal transformation. Growth happens here 🌱
We give so much of our selves at work: our time, our energy, our ideas. We juggle stressors, demands, dynamics, and relationships. And oftentimes we work within physical environments that we have little to no control over.
If we’re not actively infusing our day with moments of calm and creating space to focus, it’s pretty easy for our day to run us than for us to run our day. Below I’ve compiled part 1 of my favorite low-lift ways to create a calm and focused work environment that you can start implementing immediately.
How to create a calm and focused work environment
📱Remove excess apps, social media, and notification badges from your phone
The average person checks their phone over 100 times per day (!!!). One hundred micro-interruptions that pull our focus away from what we’re meant to be doing. To begin reducing how distracting your phone is, I highly recommend some deep cleaning.
First, remove any apps that you aren’t using on a consistent basis. If you don’t want to remove an app from your phone entirely because you check it sporadically (e.g. banking apps), start by removing them from your Home Screen. Clearing away the digital clutter will help you to feel less overwhelmed when you look at your phone.
Next, consider deleting your social media apps. Yes, I said delete them. Let’s be honest, the majority of the time we’re reaching for our phone is to mindlessly scroll Instagram, TikTok, or another platform as a means of distraction. Deleting these apps off your phone does two things: first, they’re out of sight, out of mind. Second, if you do end up wanting to check Instagram, for example, you’ll need to re-download the app and enter your login info. These two steps may seem minor but I can guarantee a majority of the time you won’t want to bother.
Just because you delete the apps off your phone doesn’t mean you can’t go on social media again, but it does nudge you to be more intentional about your use. For example, maybe you commit to only scrolling at lunch or only checking social media from a desktop computer.
Related: Breaking up (with your phone) is hard to do
Lastly, turn off notification badges (especially for emails). How stress-inducing is it to see that little red bubble telling you that you have tens, hundreds, or even thousands of unread emails or Slack messages? Turn them off. This was one of the most helpful pieces of advice I read a few years ago to help manage work stress. I know what you’re thinking, “But Alison, how will I know if I have new emails or messages?” Glad you asked! This leads me to…
💌Manage your email inbox
Managing your email inbox! In his book “The 4-Hour Workweek” Tim Ferris talks about how to manage your inbox so that you can focus on the 20% of work that’s actually effective rather than swimming in a sea of emails all day. He recommends setting boundaries around when you check your email and letting those you work with know about those boundaries too. For example, you could set a rule that you’re only going to check your email once in the morning and once before the end of the day. Having set times to check your email forces you to prioritize what you’re giving your attention to instead of playing whack-a-mole with every new email that comes into your inbox.
“Yeah right, my boss would never let me get away with checking my email only twice a day,” you might be saying. My question to you is: have you asked? Let your boss know what you want to do and ask if you can experiment for a week or two. You may be (pleasantly) surprised at what’s possible when you ask 😉.
Another way to reduce inbox overwhelm is to unsubscribe from emails that you never read or emails that continually cause stress/anxiety. My inbox used to be flooded with newsletters whose subject lines were fear-based — “The top 1% of people do X,” “Do X or risk becoming Y” “Last chance to do X,” and on and on. I constantly felt like I was missing out or not doing enough. Once I hit unsubscribe and cut out all the noise, my inbox became a much more enjoyable place.
🐦Work to the sounds of nature
Some of the most effective sounds to work to are sounds of nature, like birds chirping or ocean waves. Multiple studies have shown that nature’s sounds diminish the body’s fight-or-flight instincts, promoting feelings of relaxation, enhanced cognitive function, improved mood, and lower stress. One of my favorite Spotify playlists to work to is Birds in the Forest 👇🏼
🌳Take your meetings outside
Speaking of nature, walking meetings are an amazing way to increase your productivity, creativity, and wellbeing. Going for a walk while you take a meeting (either in person or on a call) can increase your creativity by at least 80% because you put yourself in a different environment. Getting away from your desk not only limits distractions and interruptions, but being in nature also reduces mental fatigue and restores the neural pathways needed for attention and focus. Plus, walking itself improves mental and cardiovascular health!
🌸Diffuse essential oils at your desk
Diffusing essential oils at my desk is one of my favorite ways to support my mind, body, and environment. Aromatherapy, or essential oil therapy, has been around for thousands of years. When inhaled, the scent molecules in the essential oils travel directly through our olfactory nerves and into our brain, impacting our amygdala (the emotional center of the brain). Diffusing essential oils at your desk won’t just impact you — everyone around you will also benefit 😁 Some of my favorite essential oils to diffuse are:
Peppermint and eucalyptus for energy
Spearmint and rosemary for learning and memory
Citrus (lemon, orange, lime, grapefruit, bergamot) to create a positive mood
Florals (lavender, rose, jasmine, ylang ylang) to reduce stress
If you’re new to essential oils it’s important to know that all essential oils are not created equally. Many of the brands you’ll find at your local grocery store often have added chemicals in them 😫 My favorite brands that I personally buy are Doterra and Saje.
See you next week for part 2!
Take care,
Alison