Updated: October 9, 2023

How to Create the Perfect Home Workspace for Online Learning

As an online student, you’ll need a place where you can take your classes and complete your assignments comfortably. To help you with this, we want to share some ideas for you to set up your perfect home workspace for online learning.

Setting up a dedicated space for online learning will help you focus and stay on track, which will also assist you in becoming more organized, efficient, and productive. The following tips will help you create the perfect home workspace you need to reach your online learning goals:

Pick the Right Space

The first step to building the perfect home workspace is choosing the right location. If you can, try to set up your workspace near a window with natural light. This will help you stay alert and focused while you’re studying.

The key to being productive while studying at home is to find a space with minimal distractions. Having a dedicated space for school work will help you avoid distractions and become more productive during the time you spend studying. Multipurpose spaces like living rooms and kitchens may cause too many distractions while you’re doing school work, especially if you don’t live alone.

However, if there is no space available at home for an office area, you can turn a corner of your bedroom into an online learning space that allows you to feel comfortable while studying. Ideally, having the perfect home workspace will allow you to disconnect from school while you are doing other things around your home and vice versa.

Eliminate Distractions

While planning the location for your home workspace, we recommend you try to find a spot that is comfortable enough for you to spend a few hours at a time. It’s also important for you to ensure that there are minimal distractions around your designated space for online learning.

Besides the location, it’s crucial to your academic success that you communicate your schedule to whoever is at home with you. That way you can ensure you are disturbed or interrupted as little as possible while doing your schoolwork. If it’s necessary, you can even leave a note on the door so everyone knows you are concentrating on your coursework and that you are trying to avoid any distractions.

Keep Your Supplies within an Arm’s Reach

Since we talked about avoiding distractions, one way to easily get distracted is having to get up to find any supplies you might need while taking your classes. We recommend that you organize your home workspace and set up a desk where you can store pens, highlighters, notebooks and any other supplies you may need while doing school work. If you can reach those supplies easily whenever you need them, then you won’t have to break away once you are in the zone to go find them somewhere else.

Pick Proper Furnishings

Your home workspace doesn’t need to be big, but it should be comfortable enough for you to spend several hours there. The goal is for you to feel relaxed and focused while you’re studying. To accomplish that, here are some ideas to make sure your home workspace for online learning is perfect for you:

• Pick a chair that is comfortable and offers enough support for you along with a proper desk for optimal posture. This is very important to consider, especially because you will be spending quite some time working on school projects and assignments. Try to use a chair that has a soft seat, or add a cushion or pillow to the chair to make it more comfortable, too.
• Setting up a secondary monitor with the proper cable or docking station to hook up your computer can be very useful. An extra monitor can help improve your productivity as it would allow you to open several documents/materials side by side instead of having to switch from window to window when working on your online assignments.
• Ensure your space has proper lighting. Natural light is recommended for your workspace, but we also suggest you have either a desk lamp or a floor lamp in the area for when you are doing school work during the nighttime. Having proper lighting will help you relieve the straining and the tiredness of your eyes when reading, taking notes, or working on your computer.
• Installing a whiteboard in your workspace can help with your productivity and organization skills. A whiteboard can be useful for you to plan out ideas or even keep your work schedule visible at all times.

Personalize Your Space with Decorations

Part of feeling comfortable in your home workspace is also making sure you like the way it looks. Regardless of your taste in decorations, you can personalize your space by adding a few pieces that can add some character to it.

A great app where you can find many decoration ideas is Pinterest. The app allows you to create boards (similar to folders) where you can save ideas that you like, from artwork to color palettes, different trays, pencil holders, etc. In some cases, they even take you to the online store where you can buy those pieces, so it can make your decoration process even easier.

At the end of the day, the most important thing is for you to have a home workspace where you feel comfortable and relaxed. This will help your productivity and creativity flow more naturally during your online learning process.

Still Deciding If an Online Program is the Right Choice for You?

If you’re still figuring out if getting an online degree is the right choice for you, we recommend that you review our previous blog posts: Benefits of Earning an Online Degree, Pros and Cons: Online vs. In-Person Classes, and Cost of an Online Degree vs. Traditional Education.