Save Energy by Creating a Home Office With Natural Light
My home office is tucked away in the corner of my studio apartment farthest from my west-facing windows, but as the coronavirus quarantine progresses, I’ve found myself less and less interested in sitting at my tax-free desk. and more and more I’m more interested in finishing my work while standing at the kitchen counter.
This is actually due to sunlight. And because I can see the herbs that I grow on my windowsill, the celery stalk that I “planted” in a glass of water, and the trees outside that are just beginning to be leafed.
Today is Earth Day and it’s a good day to think about the natural world, and one way to keep our natural world alive, even when we’re stuck at home, is to spend most of our time in natural light. … As Megan Barber explains at Curbed :
Now that many people are working full-time from home due to the pandemic, rethink your workspace : do you need lights on all day? Is there an alternative location with better natural light? By turning off a few bulbs, you will reduce energy consumption and extend the life of the bulbs.
Spending more of the day with as little lights on as possible can also help lower your electricity bill, which can be a little more expensive than usual as you spend more time at home. I’ve been working from home since 2012, so my bill hasn’t changed much, but I could be more careful to turn off lights when the sun comes out and turn off electrical appliances when I’m not using them. I could also take Lisa Rowan’s Lifehacker recent advice and vacuum under my refrigerator , which I literally never did (but should help the refrigerator coils dissipate heat more efficiently).
So try working in sunlight, at least Earth Day – and if that doesn’t work for you, it’s easy enough to turn the light back on tomorrow. If you already know that working with natural light in your living space isn’t possible, Curbed has 16 additional climate change mitigation tips you might want to consider, all of which are safe to quarantine.