How much impact does your physical environment have on your study habits? I’m fairly convinced that one’s surroundings has a great deal to do with how much studying actually gets done, and lately I’ve done some minor re-arrangements with my home office to try and counter all the distractions that prevent or delay my homework from getting done.

My first challenge is that I have a corner desk. It does have good shelving, a hide-away keyboard tray, and a raised back area, which are pluses. I’ve tried a variety of arrangements, but since my laptop is my primary computer, none of them seem to fit. For one, setting my laptop on the main panel means I have to lean over the books and papers I am working on to reply to an instant message — or even worse, write an email. Another arrangement that I experimented with was using the roll-out tray for my studies; books, papers, etc. collected there and could be hidden at will. However, its lowered position made for back pain also, especially after hours hunched over working on physics problems!

Not to mention, having my computer as the central focus on the desk is an immense distraction. So, now for the solution to the problem. I’ve set up a meager desktop system for normal computing, setting the monitor on the back shelf, and my laptop has moved to the side (inside a little nook I used to store books in — these are now underneath and to my right). The laptop is delegated to reference material, pages need to stay up; generally things that will be open for some time to minimize that times I need to move to its keyboard. The main desktop, if used, will probably run Synergy so that I can use the same keyboard and mouse for both computers. The best thing is, my textbooks, papers, and all that are now at the normal level right in front of me, which I was surprised to find made for much more comfortable and pleasant reading (something I’ve been getting behind on).

So, there it is. Just some minor changes, but the goal is to create an environment that minimizes distraction and emphasizes getting the work done, without spending money on a new desk (yet). Do you have a preferred office space arrangment or system of organization that boosts your productivity? Let me know in the comments.