Homework in the Living Room
Ahh, homework. Every student’s favourite part of schooling and education. While it may be an unwelcome aspect of your evening at home, completing homework doesn’t have to be the chore it’s made out to be. If you plan and outfit your space in certain ways, you may find that you are not only able to finish your work in good time, but you’ll inevitably begin to enjoy it more and more.
Building yourself a space dedicated to homework in the living room doesn’t have to take up the entire room, and it certainly doesn't have to cost you a ton of money to do it well. In this post, we’ll discuss how you can tailor your living room into the perfect homework station by organizing, rearranging, and customizing your surroundings.
Put your Phone Away!
How many of us get into our phones and social media only to find we’ve wasted a half hour of time looking at pictures of cars, cats, or island paradises? Probably most of us. It’s counterproductive to getting your work done.
Key to getting your homework done in good time and having it all make sense is keeping your mind focused on the task at hand. Take opportunity to put your phone away in another room, on silent. When you eliminate the possibility of the screen lighting up in front of you, you help yourself stay focused on the task at hand - getting your homework done before dinner.
Turn the TV Off
Much the same concept can be extended to the television . As one of the busiest rooms in the home, the living room can often feature a big television for watching the news, a movie, or curling up with your old buddy, Netflix. Many of us enjoy having some type of white noise in the background to help us concentrate when doing homework or other tedious tasks, but the brightness and vividness of a big screen holds just as much power over you as your cell phone.
Instead, opt for some calming music on the radio, or toss on a white noise site like Noisli to generate some background noise to help you increase your productivity.
Build a Good Workstation
It’s always frustrating to be working on a project and have a breakthrough, only to find that your notes are all disorganized and you can’t find the resources you need to write down your thinking. Key to developing and building a good homework station is having the proper space on which to work.
In the living room, this usually means the couch and the coffee table, but hunching over a cramped space isn’t beneficial to your homework progress. Make sure that you have a table top large enough to spread out and organize your laptop, textbooks, and all other homework related materials. This could mean investing in a tall pub table for behind the couch, so you have the available space to keep all of your materials close by.
Students need to have all of their effects readily available without having to get up and search for something. It’s much less distracting than searching all over for a highlighter or a pen.
Easy Transitions
Sometimes kids will opt to move their homework station into the living room while mom or dad wants to catch the news, or relax with a cold one after work. Having your spaces readily transitional helps to create impromptu homework spaces out of any room, not just the living room. Keep some homework related supplies like paper, pens, highlighters, a laptop charger, and a bookshelf in the room so your kids can use the space and clean it back up again without having to tear apart the room.
Keep a space saver caddy nearby to assemble everything in one space. Many of these gear caddy’s or supply storage solutions can tuck into small or lesser used spaces so they can hide from sight. When homework is done, you’ll i nevitably want your living room back , and having an easy clean-up solution helps make that happen easily.
Location
Many studies have shown unequivocally that views of the outdoors and ample access to natural light helps to increase productivity , efficiency and happiness in office workers; there’s no reason why that same research couldn’t apply to your homework-loathing youngster.
Provide a space that’s bright, airy, open and fresh as a way to help boost the effects of a homework station in the living room. When considering putting the homework station in the basement rec room , consider that the space may be too dark, or closed in to allow for good productivity. Keeping your living room open to being the primary homework completion station is all about realizing the work will be done quicker, more effectively, and better, than work that’s completed in purgatory.
Place a large table and an ergonomically correct chair near a large window in the living room so your kids can have a view of greenery and sky instead of the walls of your basement rec room, and watch the effects of natural light boost their enjoyment of homework time.