In my case the problem is that I literally can’t work (meaning, program) if the temperature is less than 22C. Warm clothing, hot drinks, nothing helps. Tried many times.
Heat the space immediately around you. Don't bother with central heating. Get a small electric blanket that you can have on your lap.
If you are feeling more adventurous I got through a cold winter where the heating broke when I was a student with a mix of warm clothing, blankets, and doing exercises to keep warm. When you start getting cold, do some press-ups/squats etc.
If you are feeling really adventurous I would recommend going outside wearing less clothes than you want to, just trousers and a shirt/jumper. When you get really cold head back in and it will seem positively warm! Another way of doing this is cold showers.
I'd say heat the person, not the space. Following on from the Electric Blanket mention, I'd recommend a heated vest. I have one made by Arris [1], and it has a 7.4V battery. Following a tip in an Amazon review, I
contacted their customer services and got a voucher for a second battery at half price.
Last winter, I used it a lot when WFH to avoid the temptation of using the boost on the central heating. With two batteries, one can be charging while the other is in use. According to my meter plug it was economical to charge.
I found it worked best with a thin base layer underneath the heated vest, and a good fleece over it. There are several heating areas on the front and back, and I found that the battery lasted best by starting at the highest heat setting and then stepping down through the levels as I warmed up. Very useful when sitting still long periods at your computer. And of course the advantage over a blanket or electric fan is that you can walk around with it on.
I am renting my apartment in Switzerland, where split AC installations are prohibitively expensive ($3000 or more for a single unit) and usually forbidden by landlords.
No, many can't. Yes, you can live and survive at colder temperatures, but concentration requires no distractions, and the constant slight pain caused by being cold is enough distraction to completely derail any train of thought.
I take it you don’t have ADHD? The reason people with ADHD often work while wearing noise-cancelling headphones even with no audio playing is because this mechanism doesn’t properly work, it can’t tune out anything.
As result, we need to minimize external stimuli to be able to concentrate. And being uncomfortable due to the cold is one such stimulus.
Decreased comfort = decreased productivity. On an individual level people can cope but on a societal level it’s a real issue. I want a society full of productive people so I want investment in clean energy supplies and high performance buildings.
That's interesting. I realize you can argue about people in general (e.g. 21 is still fine with me!), but how can you negate someone else's feelings? It's like replying "no, you are not" to someone saying "I'm sad."
My office is in a cool (64F) basement. Something I've found works to warm me up is to do a bunch of squats and pushups when I'm cold. If you're able to, perhaps try doing 10 squats then 5 pushups on repeat 3-5 times until you're warm/hot.
I find the warmth lasts about an hour and has the side effect of also warming my office a degree or so.
You can get heated office chair covers, think like a car's heated seats but for office chairs. They pull about 30W and made a big difference when I lived through Illinois winters.
Hope that electric heating will still be legal.