Working from home the last few months, I have thought lots about the physical environment and have set up multiple home office workstations until I settled on what worked best for me. I never though much about the look and feel of my digital environment until I came across some YouTube videos on Mac Customization Tips & Tricks following the purchase of a new Mac to meet the demands of distance education.
If you search YouTube, you will find lots of these videos! The first one I found and used was by Julia K Crist. I particularly love the digital clock screensaver and have already customized my folder icons as coffee cups. (Surprise, surprise!) She talked about custom desktop backgrounds and even had some available for free download but the style wasn’t mine. And, then I remembered Canva which always seems to have templates for absolutely everything. Google Classroom Headers, anyone?
Of course, Canva did in fact have custom desktop backgrounds. I have no idea why I never bothered to change the background on any of my devices up until this point but given my appreciation for the other digital environment customization tips, I did create a custom desktop background in Canva. It was super easy and fully customizable. And, I look forward to changing on a semi-regularly basis to reflect the different work seasons and my needs.
Just like how the look and feel of our physical environments affect our work and productively so can our digital environments. So if you’re looking to freshen up your digital environment, check out Canva and create a custom desktop background today.