8 Ways I Upgraded My Writing Environment This Past Month

PS. The last one is free and you should totally check it out

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to get better as a writer.

I’m a big believer in removing obstacles that hinder us in achieving our goals. Sometimes we may not even realize that the situation we are currently in is holding us back. It’s important to experiment with different setups to find the optimal one for us.

To do any less would be doing ourselves a disservice.

This goes for the process as well as our physical surroundings. But for the purposes of this story, I’m going to talk about the actual physical space we write in.

What about you? Do you have an optimal writing environment?

Or did you just take over an existing space — in which case it’s most likely suboptimal? After three months of writing on Medium, I decided to upgrade myself and do a thorough audit of my writing environment.

You don’t have to do this all at once if you don’t have the budget or a large chunk of time. You can make small improvements over time, as a reward for continuing along your writing journey.

Here are the 8 things I changed that have since worked wonders for my productivity.

*PS. the last one is free!

I didn’t have a desk, and crashing at Peet’s wasn’t a permanent solution

As writing can require long hours at the computer, I looked at getting a decent standing desk. I ended up getting this one from Costco which is just perfect for me. (I actually wished I’d picked up two while I was at it…)

The chair I inherited from my BF was okay, but…

I finally broke down and splurged on an Aeron chair, which supports the base of the spine for a healthy posture. It also has a tilt mechanism allows the chair to move with your body; pivot points align with the hips, knees, and ankles for a natural recline motion. And I love that the woven suspension textile weaves together two unique materials with elastic properties to make the seat and backrest flexible and breathable.

Get a comfortable chair. If you’re not sitting properly you could end up with repetitive strain injuries or lower back pain.

How’s your lighting?

Sit quietly at your desk and notice if there’s any sharp light coming in through the window. For example, I have a small west-facing window in front of me and afternoon sun pours straight through. My solution? I taped a piece of thick faux pleather that I found in the craft room. Maybe not the most elegant solution, but hey… problem solved.

Then, I noticed that at night one of the four canned lights in the room was directly above me — causing a glare in one if not both my screens. I’m also not a fan of light from above. I tried turning them off and turning on all the other nearby lights but this solution made the room too dark. So I ended up found this floor lamp which is great at giving me some ambient light while I’m writing in the evenings.

Another problem solved.

I’m like a plant — I love fresh airflow

It’s really important I have fresh air while writing. I put my desk by the window and open it each night when I’m working.

Speaking of plants, I put a lucky money tree next to my desk as well. These are one of the three popular houseplants which purify the air we breathe. They can also reduce stress and anxiety while writing.

Oxygen is super critical for the brain.

Don’t forget those office supplies

I filled my drawer with a stack of blank printer paper, a few of my favorite Pilot B2P pens, and a small pad of stickies.

Have a messy desk? No worries — it happens to the best of us. If this is this case, simply remove everything, and put it in a box. Then put back only what you need.

A word about digital devices

When I’m ready to write, I turn my phone upside down so I don’t see notifications coming in. That way I only see them during my break times.

I also close all chat windows, Slack app, and Gmail. And all social channels, including Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn and so on.

Also… wall art

This one might be a bit controversial, and I’m going to start by saying that before I started writing on Medium, I’ve never put up a single motivational poster on the wall. But hey, since we’re trying out new things, why limit ourselves? I did a Google search and found a plethora of printouts, of which I selected this one, printed it out, and stuck it to the wall.

The rest of the walls in the room are relatively empty with the exception of this cool atomic clock which I had to get (another splurge…).

A free cool writing editor I found

I found this cool new tool called Frost which allows the user to write in a completely distraction-free environment and plays music according to the theme of the user’s writing — how sweet is that?

The best thing about Frost is that it creates the mood and then gets out of the way to let you just write. Its mission is simple — minimalistic writing. No tools, editing options, menu bars, unnecessary customization, distracting notifications, etc. Nope. Nada. Just a clean UI and cool tunes.

I find it works especially well for creative writing, with moods ranging from calm to happy to dark and foreboding, love, inspirational and more. You simply select the mood and you’re all set.

You just have to do one thing — write.

In conclusion

If you’re looking to improve your writing, don’t forget to examine your environment.

Chances are you can make small tweaks to your current working space that will boost your productivity and help set you up to succeed in the long-term — and unleash your fullest writing potential.