​In today's audio, I talk about a small change I made to my working environment which has really helped to improve my productivity in recent times. To listen to the audio, you can click the play button below.

You can also read the transcription beneath the audio.

​Hi, Carthage Buckley here from Coaching Positive Performance. I've a very quick but slightly unusual productivity tip for you this week.

Recently I noticed that I was finding it more and more difficult to stay sitting at my desk throughout the day. At every opportunity I would get up and I would go do something else just to distract myself. I realised this was affecting my productivity so I needed to change something so, I sat down and I evaluated the situation. I took out a pen and paper and I noted everything that I felt could be contributing to the problem. In the end I realised it was actually due to the fact that my desk was facing a wall,

I work at home so in order to save space in my home I had the desk up against the wall so that there was plenty of room left in the room. But, I realised that looking at a wall all day is not pleasant in fact it's very boring and very annoying so, I took my desk and I turned it around. It's a big desk it takes up a hell of a lot of room. But I turned it around I set everything up; I pulled it a nice space away from the wall where I could see him behind it and where I was looking out towards the window and of course, with the window comes plenty of sunlight; even on these winter evenings and I've noticed now in the few weeks that I've had the desk turned around that' that sunlight makes me much happier and more pleasant sitting at my desk. My mood is much much better and I am not not feeling the urges to get up and get away from my desk.

So, between sitting at my desk for longer periods and being in a better mood I find that my productivity has lifted amazingly. I'm getting a hell of a lot more down right now. There are a few other things that are helping and I'll discuss them later but I found that this has made an unbelievable difference to my productivity. So, what I would say to you is if you are somebody who struggles to sit at the desk and do your work then something about your environment needs to change and it maybe like me that you need to turn your desk around to face to sunlight or, it maybe something else.

I would urge you to take out a pen and paper and go through everything. Consider every possibility. Don't rule something out; and then start experimenting to see what makes a difference and what makes you happiest sitting at your desk. It might be that you just need to change it around every now and again so that your desk is a little different and it feels like you've changed environment or it might be something else but ultimately when you experiment and see the results for yourself; you'll probably find that changing one small thing can make a massive difference. So, don't keep things the same. If things aren't working something needs to change; so, try to identify the best change you can make, make that change and see how it works out. If it doesn't improve things just pick the next change and try that until you find what works for you.

So, there's your productivity tip for this week.

Thank you for listening.

​If your environment is not working for you, even the smallest change can make a massive difference.

If are struggling for organisation and focus, you will find some help here.