Many remote workers fall victim to the same mistake, working in a poorly lit home office. Poor lighting reduces our energy, creates eyestrain and headaches, and impairs our overall ability to work effectively. That’s why we thought it was important to dedicate an article to tips for properly lighting your home office.

Before deciding on how to light your home, you need to be sure that all the furniture and art are in place. Map out the room and the activities you anticipate. If you have a desk for example, but plan on spending time reading on the comfy recliner in the corner, you’ll want to ensure both spaces are well lit.

Once the room is mapped out, it’s time explore the three types of lighting most rooms need:

TASK LIGHTING

Let’s continue the example of a lamp near the chair you expect to be reading in. This is considered task lighting. These lights serve a purpose. When deciding how to light a room, task lighting is a great place to start.

Base your decisions on function as well as style. For a task light, you want to look for a desk lamp or floor reading lamps.These are bright enough to reduce squinting and eye strain.

ACCENT LIGHTING

Now that the task lighting is arranged, you’ll want to focus on the accessories and artwork decorating your office. Accentlighting is used to highlight these as well as any architectural features worth showing off.

Adjustable recessed lighting is popular for brightening special pieces. Often referred to as “pot lights” these fixtures are small and flush with the ceiling. Working with adjustable lighting allows you to angle the light to shine on your art, or a filing cabinet, etc. If you have a standard eight-foot ceiling, which many homes in Ontario have, you’ll want to place the light two feet away from the wall, and angled to 30 degrees for the best display.

Wall-grazer lights can also be considered if you’re drawing attention to an architectural feature or bookcase. These lightsare almost invisible and create lighting that is very appealing to the eye.

AMBIENT LIGHTING

Once you’ve decided on your task and your accent lighting, you can fill in the blanks. That’s what ambient lighting does. A relatively new style of fixture has been designed for ambient lighting, called linear architectural recessed lighting. Picture long skinny lines of light; It’s sleek and fits into the drywall easily.

Ambient floor and table lamps are also available. Many people confuse these with the task lighting pieces we discussed earlier. They are different, task lighting floor lamps, for example, are brighter and more focused, while an ambient floor lamp has a broader, usually dimmer beam. Floor lamps are a popular choice because they create a localized pool of light at eye level, this effect is very flattering on faces.

Consider using a Smart LED bulb in your ambient lights. This allows you to dim, change colours, and set timers very easily.

LET’S NOT FORGET NATURAL LIGHT

There are many benefits that come from natural light. We are more energized and productive and less likely to experience headaches.

When planning the layout of your office, aim to have natural light in front of your work surfaces to avoid a glare on your screen. This also lets you have a view of the outside.