Baby, it’s getting cold outside. Yet that doesn’t mean that you should let the weather slow down your productivity in the office.

In fact, while you’ve probably read many articles on how winter weather decreases overall productivity and motivation, recent studies have shown that this is only partially true. In 2015, The Atlantic published an article, “Bad Weather: Better for Work, Terrible for Everything Else” looking at new research experiments in American and Japanese workplaces. These studies found that the cold winter weather is a positive boost for workplace productivity, because employees are more focused on the tasks at hand rather than distracted by what they could be doing outside of the office.

I know what you are thinking, “If that is so, then why is it that all I want to do is snuggle up on the couch under a warm blanket and binge on Netflix throughout the winter?” Here’s why: Those previous assumptions on weather decreasing productivity aren’t completely wrong. [Read more…]