It’s 9am, and you’re setting up your work space for the day. You’ve got coffee, you’ve eaten breakfast, and you’re about to log on when the doorbell rings and interrupts you for the next 10 minutes. After a while, you take a break on the sofa to check your phone, and suddenly half an hour has passed.

Sound like a familiar working from home story? You’re not alone. According to a recent study, while around 68% of people find it difficult to focus in an office, 62% also admit that they have a hard time staying on task while at home.

From the TV and catching up with your housemates to a particularly comfy-looking bed, the distractions are everywhere. However, an answer could lie in spatial association, the neuroscientist-backed technique that’s all about creating dedicated ‘work zones’ to help improve focus and boost productivity, wherever you’re working from.

According to Dr Emilia Molimpakis, neuroscientist and CEO at Thymia, spatial association is about associating different spaces with different tasks and/or mindsets and being clear-cut and hygienic about what you do where. The idea is that if you associate a place with a particular job, task, subject or mindset, you’ll find it easier to focus on that task or engage with that mindset when you are in that place. So instead of working from your sofa, dining room table, bed or any available surface, you’ll set strict boundaries around where you can and can’t log on from.

“The idea behind spatial association is that repeating the same task in the same space each time helps you to focus and get your head in the game quickly when you get there,” she explains. “Recent research has shown that when people go about their normal daily lives, contextual factors like time and place can impact our cognitive performance, including attention and working memory.” For the same reason, if you always practice for presentations in a particular room, it can be easier to recall information during the presentation by drawing your mind back to what you covered when you were in that space.

So what does it look like in practice at home?

“I have strict ‘no work’ zones and my living room is one of these places,” explains Dr Molimpakis. “It was particularly important to me to set this boundary during the pandemic, when I’d work remotely. I always made sure that I worked in one area in the house and then, when in the living room, I didn’t allow myself my laptop or access to my work apps on my phone. I’ve stuck to it, so now when I get home from work and sit on the sofa, I automatically switch off and relax.” The gym is another ‘no work’ zone, says Dr Molimpakis. “I’ve committed to switching off my notifications when I’m at the gym, so I now associate the treadmill with watching box sets and taking time for myself.”

When in the office, she employs the reverse logic. “I try to avoid doing life admin at my desk and I take any personal calls outside the office,” she explains. “Having these boundaries in place helps me focus and stay on task when I’m at my desk. When I walk through the door to the office, I immediately enter ‘work mode’.”

According to Dr Molimpakis, it’s not just about where you’re completing a task that matters: spatial association can also encompass elements adjacent to space, such as wearing particular clothes. “If you work from home, another way of enforcing a work association with some areas and relaxation association with others is to always change into ‘work clothes’ for when you are working versus changing into ‘relaxation clothes’ when you move into your no-work area at the end of the day,” she advises.

You can even take it one step further and associate different places or even different seats in your office with different tasks. For example, you might always do brainstorming at your standing desk, so this becomes your creative space. However, you might complete long writing tasks when you’re working from home, so whenever you’re there you lock into that mindset. 

However, it’s always important to remember that different strategies and spaces work for different people. Whether you’re ticking off your to-do list in a coffee shop or a communal office area, setting boundaries around ‘work’ spaces and ‘relaxing’ spaces is always useful.

Images: Getty