Arranging a home office: where to place your desk?

A properly equipped and thoughtfully arranged home office is essential for productivity and comfort. When designing such a space, start with the most important piece of furniture – the desk. Apart from choosing the best model for your individual needs, deciding on how to position it is also crucial. Here is our short guide on where to place your desk so you can work more efficiently and comfortably.

Facing away from the window?

Before we get into how to “correctly” position a desk, we’d like to go over what better not to do. Putting your desk facing away from the window is, perhaps, the biggest sin of workspace arrangement, especially when it’s the only window in the room. Harsh sunlight shining directly on your monitor is the antithesis of comfort and a repellent of productivity. You can, of course, cover the window and deprive yourself of access to natural light – not the best or healthiest solution either. Moreover, working in such conditions for a long time might cause headaches. Placing the desk with your back to the window, however, may work well for larger rooms with at least two windows on two different walls. In these cases, you can sit at your desk with your back to one window (partially or completely covered while you work) and your side to the other, which gives you both access to sunlight and a view of the entire room.

Work with a view – facing the window

Positioning your desk to face the window has many advantages. The biggest being the sun exposure giving you access to natural light, without those pesky rays falling directly on your screen. Besides, if you are lucky enough to have a view of a garden or a park, you gain at least a small substitute of connection with nature while working – you can lift their tired eyes from the computer and spend a minute relaxing and taking in the greenery. Such working conditions encourage creativity and have a positive impact on your mental health.

On the other hand, a window facing desk can be a cause of more frequent distractions, especially with a busy street outside, with something happening all the time. So, when planning a home office, think outside the box and take into account the conditions outside your room.

Facing the wall

With too many potential distractions outside the window, you might want to place your desk against the wall. This solution works particularly well when your job requires deep concentration. The downside of this choice is that staring at the wall for several hours a day can intensify feelings of isolation and reduce creativity. However, you can remedy this (at least to some extent) – decorate the wall in front of you with an inspiring and motivating view.

Floating shelves will give you both a visual variety and additional storage to keep necessary accessories within reach, but also display photographs, souvenirs from your favorite places, or flowers. You could also hang a creative moodboard on the wall above your desk and mount our MagSafe iPhone Wall Mount to make using your iPhone while working more convenient.

The best desk placement: window on the side

To ensure maximum ergonomics and comfort of your workspace, position your desk perpendicular to the window. This gives you both optimal access to daylight and a chance to look outside and take a break from the artificial light emitted by your screen. At the same time, the sun doesn’t shine directly on the screen (at least not all day long – the direction the window faces is also important here), so you work more comfortably, which translates into higher productivity.

Location of the desk in relation to the door

While positioning your desk with your windows in mind is crucial when designing a workspace, it is not the only thing that matters. You should also think about the door. According to feng shui, a desk can’t have its user sit with their back to the door. According to this practice, the desk’s placement should provide a view of the entire room, including its entrance - this is referred to as the command position, which gives a sense of control and power in one's professional life.

How to make designing an office easier?

Each of the desk positions we presented you with has its advantages and disadvantages. Ideally, you should be able to use them all, alternating between them, depending on concentration required, your mood, the weather, the time of day, and the season. We have our Oaky way of doing it: a desk on wheels! You can add a set of swivel casters either when configuring the Standing Desk Touch and Pro, or as a separate order if you already have a desk. Equipped with safe brakes and rubber pads, they protect the floor from scratches, are durable, and easy to install.

This allows you to effortlessly move your desk to any location, depending on your ever-changing needs. An ideal solution to when your home office is also a part of the living room – after finishing work, the desk can be moved to a more secluded place, giving you more room to rest.