The Best Temperature for Your Home Writing Office

Temperatures are getting colder,
which means you may be feeling it in your writing nook.

I started using my handwarmers about a month ago. Even a slight chill can make my fingers stiff, and then my typing is clunky and slow. (Read more about handwarmers in our previous post, “Hands Too Cold to Type? Try These.”)

How about you? What is your ideal working temperature? Can you work at that temperature, or do you have “office mates” that complain?

Scientists researched this topic and came up with a range that helps increase productivity. If you need a little ammunition to convince others of what the temperature needs to be, this may do the trick!

What’s the Ideal Temperature for Your Writing Nook?

Indoor temperature affects many human responses, including performance at work. In a 2006 review, scientists looked at studies that evaluated how temperature affected tasks like text processing, simple calculations (addition, multiplication), and length of telephone customer-service time.

After calculating the percentage of performance change per degree increase in temperature, they found that performance increased with temperatures up to 21-22 degrees Celsius (69.8 to 71.6 degrees Fahrenheit), with the highest productivity at 71.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

An earlier study found that colder temperatures hurt efficiency. Researchers studied workers at workstations where air temperature was measured every 15 minutes. They also recorded the amount of time the employees typed and how much time they spent correcting errors.

Results showed that colder temperatures increased errors.

• At 77 degrees Fahrenheit, the workers typed 100 percent of the time with a 10 percent error rate.
• At 68 degrees, their typing rate went down to 54 percent with a 25 percent error rate.
• When the temperature increased from 68 to 77 degrees, typing errors fell by 44 percent, and typing output jumped 150 percent.

For writers, who are typing most all the time, this is a key difference indeed!

“Temperature is certainly a key variable that can impact performance,” said study author Alan Hedge, professor of design and environmental analysis and director of Cornell’s Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory.

A Career Builder survey reported that 53 percent of workers said they were less productive when the office was too cold, and a Premiere Global Services survey also found that employees’ productivity suffered when the temperature was too hot or too cold. When faced with either situation, employees focused on other ways to regulate body temperature, which hindered productivity.

You know how it goes. If you’re too cold, you’re thinking about the fact that you’re cold, which is distracting. You’re also thinking about potential solutions, like drinking hot tea, putting on more clothes, or turning up the thermostat—all drawing your focus away from your work.

Even the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recommends employers keep office buildings with a temperature control in the range of 68-76 degrees Fahrenheit, and humidity between 20-60 percent.

Female Writers May Feel Colder than Male Writers

If you work alone in your writing nook, you can probably set the temperature to whatever feels best to you. But what if you work with others, or you work in the home where others must co-exist?

Keep in mind that women typically feel the cold more than men do. They have a lower metabolic rate in general, so they naturally produce less body heat. One study reported that men have a metabolic rate about 23 percent higher than women do, so it makes sense that men may be perfectly comfortable while women sit and shiver.

Another study also reported that women’s hands and feet are colder than a man’s by a few degrees, so if your hands and feet are freezing and your male companion seems fine, there’s a reason for that.

A woman’s core body temperature is also typically higher than a man’s. That means that women are used to feeling warmer in general, so are more sensitive to colder temperatures. Women taking birth control pills have an even higher core temperature, so may feel the cold even more.

Here’s another kicker: Though for decades researchers showed that offices should set their temperatures between 71 and 73 degrees Fahrenheit, that research was outdated, and primarily based on male workers.

So if you’re a woman sharing a workspace with a man, explain to him some of these facts if you’re having trouble getting him to nudge the thermostat up a bit. Otherwise your productivity suffers!

Other Factors that Affect How Warm or Cold You Feel

In addition to your gender, there are some other factors that can affect your own ideal working temperature. These include the following:

• Body weight. If you have a higher-than-average body mass index (BMI) for your age, you are likely to feel warmer, and are probably more sensitive to when the temperature gets “too hot.” If you have a lower-than-average BMI for your age, you are likely to feel colder, and will be more sensitive to when the temperature drops.
• If you’re over the age of 55, you’re likely to be more sensitive to the cold, especially in your hands and feet. There are a few reasons for that. Blood circulation is not as efficient as we age, and the fat layer under the skin that normally helps you conserve body heat tends to thin. Your metabolic rate may also be slower, so you can’t produce your own body heat as well. All these changes mean you’ll probably notice it more when the temperature drops by even a few degrees.
• How humid or dry is your writing office? If it’s too humid, it can make it feel hotter, while low humidity makes the air feel colder. A relative humidity level of about 40 percent is optimal.

How to Achieve Your Most Productive Working Temperature

In the end, it seems the ideal temperature for a productive work environment is somewhere between 72 and 77 degrees Fahrenheit. If you have sole control over your writing area, give these temperatures a try and see if you don’t get more accomplished.

But if you share a writing space, or you’re trying to save money on heating bills, try these tips to keep yourself warm no matter what.

• Use a space heater. This allows you to warm up your personal working space without necessarily affecting the temperature in the entire room.
• Dress warmly. I keep a heavy cotton jacket in my office that I can throw on anytime I start feeling chilled. Having something like this close by gives you the option to put it on and take it off depending on how you feel without having to put too much thought into it.
• Drink something hot. Tea, coffee, lemon water, hot cocoa—they all work to warm you up from the inside, out.
• Put a blanket on your lap. If you’re sitting while writing, this can make a big difference. If you’re standing, you may be able to drape it over your shoulders, but a jacket or hoodie would probably work better.
• Use handwarmers. These make a huge difference to your fingers, as they warm your wrist, which then warms the blood moving into your fingers. Suddenly you’re typing comfortably again. You can also try author Ben Sobieck’s “Writer’s Glove”—more details here.
• Try a heating pad. They sell variations now that you can use on your neck and shoulders, or even on the back of your chair.
• Use toe warmers. If your feet are freezing, try the “HotHands Toe Warmers” inside your shoes. Wool socks can also help.

How to you keep your writing nook warm in the winter?

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Sources
Arciero, P. J., Goran, M. I., & Poehlman, E. T. (1993). Resting metabolic rate is lower in women than in men. Journal of Applied Physiology, 75(6), 2514-2520. doi:10.1152/jappl.1993.75.6.2514

Kim, H., Richardson, C., Roberts, J., Gren, L., & Lyon, J. L. (1998). Cold hands, warm heart. The Lancet, 351(9114), 1492. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(05)78875-9

Lang, S. S. (2004, October 19). Study links warm offices to fewer typing errors and higher productivity | Cornell Chronicle. Retrieved from http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2004/10/warm-offices-linked-fewer-typing-errors-higher-productivity

Mackowiak, P. A. (1992). A critical appraisal of 98.6 degrees F, the upper limit of the normal body temperature, and other legacies of Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 268(12), 1578-1580. doi:10.1001/jama.268.12.1578

Nagourney, E. (2012, November 15). Why Do I Feel Colder as I Get Older? Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/15/booming/why-do-i-feel-colder-as-i-get-older.html

OSHA. (2015, July 7). OSHA Technical Manual (OTM) | Section III: Chapter 2 – Indoor Air Quality Investigation | Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Retrieved from https://www.osha.gov/dts/osta/otm/otm_iii/otm_iii_2.html#5

Schlinger, A. (2017, January 6). It’s Not In Your Head: Women Are Actually Colder Than Men, Says Science. Retrieved from https://www.glamour.com/story/theres-a-scientific-reason-women-are-always-colder-than-men

Seppänen, O., Fisk, W. J., & Lei, Q. H. (2006). Effect of Temperature on Task Performance in Office Environment. Retrieved from Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory website: https://indoor.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/lbnl-60946.pdf.

SHRM Online Staff. (2018, April 11). Too Hot! Too Cold! Temperature Affects Productivity. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-news/pages/toohottoocold.aspx.

Strain, K. (2018, June 28). What Is the Ideal Office Temperature for Productivity? – PGi Blog. Retrieved from https://www.pgi.com/blog/2018/06/what-is-the-ideal-office-temperature-for-productivity/.

Why Do Women Typically Feel Colder Than Men? (2016, December 6). Retrieved from https://doctorsthatdo.org/why-do-women-typically-feel-colder-than-men.