Lighting – Climb from Home

Want to improve your workspace while working from home? Besides your desk and chair, one of the most overlooked aspects is the lighting in your home office. Making simple changes to your lighting matters. Good lighting creates a comfortable environment that is conducive for you to focus on tasks. You want to avoid working in conditions of dim lighting. There are two important factors to pay attention to, which are the intensity and color of your lighting. Control the Light Color of Your Home Office Regardless of the color(s) your home office is painted, you can always use lighting to alter its appearance and mood. For example, if your room consists of dull or warm colors, you can use lights with cooler color temperatures to set the right tone. You may not know which colors to use right away. One option is to experiment with adjustable bulbs, which can be paired with a phone app or dimmer switch. With the flexibility to adjust colors and brightness, these bulbs allow you to find the best balance for your workspace. Another option is to simply go with daylight bulbs that emit a blue-white color, since daylight bulbs have the color temperature range (between 5000K and 6500K) that is most helpful for cognitive ability and concentration. Dynamic Lighting We should mention dynamic lighting since we are talking about light colors – it is flexible to switch up and easily change the color temperatures of your lighting. Dynamic lighting improves students’ performance, based on studies conducted in classrooms. Lighting can be customised easily to suit different types of activities, such as recess, reading, or tests. Tasks that require higher cognitive load and concentration are best performed under cool white lighting, rather than warm lighting that appears more yellowish. This shows that different categories of tasks are performed better under different light conditions. I discussed in depth the different color temperatures of lighting suited for a range of tasks such as learning, concentration, and creativity tasks. Beyond workplaces or classrooms, the same applies if you are working in your own home. If you have just a static set of lights, it is not possible to customise mood and set the tone at different times of the day, when you work on different types of tasks. When you can alter light colors and intensities, it helps provide balance to your day, as you transition from complex problem solving at work to other projects in the evenings, such as reading, creative brainstorming, building your side hustle, winding down, and so on. Dynamic lighting can be achieved with adjustable bulbs, and we will discuss this more in terms of products for good home office lighting. Color Temperatures: Warm White, Cool White, and Daylight What color temperatures of lighting should you use for your home office? Consider the differences between warm white, cool white and daylight bulbs. Bulbs are marked with color temperature in Kelvin, or K. Warm white has a color temperature of 3000K and below, and it appears yellowish. On the other hand, bulbs that are at least 4000-5000K are in the cool white temperature range. Warm/Soft White: 3000KCool White: 4000-5000KDaylight: 5000-6500K For the majority of your day, you want to use cooler lighting, which refers to either cool white or daylight bulbs in your home office. Studies find that cognitive ability and concentration is best under daylight. Daylight bulbs range from 5000K to 6500K which emit a bright blue color that feels a lot like actual daylight. When working from home, some of us tend to work late into the evenings. During evenings and nights, switch to using warm white bulbs in order to not mess up your biological clock. The warmer lighting helps you get into the creative zone, which ties in well with the time of day when your brain is tired and unable to focus intensely on a task. Yet, your brain may still be able to get creative, make interconnections, draw the big picture, and so on. Warm white colors can help bring out that zone. Good Light Colors for the Home Office We should prioritise cool white lighting in our home offices and interchange it with some warm white light. But what exactly is the range of colors involved? Are there other colors we can use to add more dynamism and vibrancy? Sure, there are. Besides white, some colors commonly used to light up a home office are blue, yellow, and to some extent orange. Blue lighting that is above 5000K is helpful for cognitively challenging tasks, so use it as a replacement for natural daylight. Blue lighting also gives you extra motivation to get things done. After focusing intensely on those tasks, yellow lighting (3000-4000 K) can help us enter a more creative zone. Going further down the scale, orange lighting (2000-3000K) can be a mood lifter when used sparingly. Besides these colors, there are two other colors I shall mention, which are worth it from time to time. Lavender or purple lighting has the effect of bringing you peace and calm. This can be great if you need to reflect or read, or if you are looking to double up your home office as a meditation room. Green lighting is another color that is easy on the eye, associated with the color of nature. Not only is it a restful color, but it improves concentration at the same time. Thus you can use green lighting for multiple functions. However, blue, purple, and green lighting can potentially hinder your ability to sleep at night. If you find that these colors affect your sleep, make sure to limit these lights during the night time if you are working late. Products for Good Home Office lighting Ultimately, you want to use lighting to ensure that the important areas of your home office are well lit. The two main categories of products you can look at are LED bulbs and LED strips. LED bulbs LED bulbs can go into the recessed lights above your desk in the ceiling. They can also be used in desk lamps or corner lamps around your workspace. LED lights are a popular addition to home and office workspaces as they are energy efficient. Adjustable LED bulbs can be synced with a phone app, and the colors and intensities of these bulbs can be directly controlled from the phone app. From the app, you will be able to adjust brightness, themes, and special effects. Adjustable LED bulbs give you control over your room lighting, depending on the time of day and the tasks you are performing. One recommendation for adjustable LED bulbs is the LIFX 1100-Lumen, which is a really popular option due to its energy efficiency and light intensity. It works with Amazon Alexa to support dimming, shades of white, and various color settings through voice control. LED light strips Like LED bulbs, LED light strips can be installed anywhere around your home office. LED light strips can be installed at the back of your computer, under your shelves, or at the corners of your walls. They provide flexible ways to dynamically improve your lighting. With LED strips, you have the ease of introducing a new light color from any small area within your home office. Besides fixed color LED strips, there are LED strips of variable color. Typically, these colored LED strips include red, green and blue channels (RGB). Like LED bulbs, they can be paired with a phone app so that you can adjust brightness, change colors, and turn the strip lights on and off with ease.