Not in a Good Place? Change Your Space
A new book explores how the spaces we inhabit alter our frame of mind.
Posted April 30, 2026 | Reviewed by Margaret Foley
There’s a reason why sports teams play better at home. Why creative ideas pop into our heads during a walk on the beach. Why we feel energized in a coffeehouse even if we’re drinking decaf.
In his new book, In a Good Place: How the Spaces Where We Live, Work, and Play Can Help Us Thrive , behavioral scientist Leidy Klotz seeks to understand how the spaces we inhabit alter our frame of mind. Acknowledging the plethora of books teaching how to live a good life, Klotz contends that his book shows where the good life can be found.
Three core psychological needs must be fulfilled to enable flourishing: agency, connection, and competence. We need to feel a sense of control, community, and opportunities for growth. We have a deep-seated evolutionary drive to manipulate the spaces we occupy to meet each of these needs. Studies show that nursing home residents with more autonomy over their rooms report greater happiness and well-being. People who reside in close-knit communities with frequent interactions often live longer with greater life satisfaction. Similar findings emerge from studies of those who participate in lifelong learning activities .
Strangely, many of the areas we inhabit during a routine day fail to satisfy these needs. On the contrary, some actively drain our agency, connection, and competence, much like a diet of highly processed foods deprives us of essential nutrients. Armed with a bevy of psychological studies, Klotz argues that there are tangible steps we can take to reclaim our home and work environments to improve both physical and mental health.
Make your spaces work for you
The first step in enhancing a place is to engage with the space. By training yourself to be more mindful of the surroundings—not just how they look, but how they smell, how they sound, how they feel—you are mining crucial information about what works in that environment, and what doesn’t work. In short, Klotz advocates that we transform ourselves from being an object in that space to a subject. I would have called it being a “space cadet.”
In a Good Place details several examples of how different workspaces promote focus, collaboration , or flexibility. The way space is organized should align with the project’s goals , and sometimes the best overall workspace consists of individual areas tailored to disparate working styles. For one company, an “activity-based” layout gave employees the choice to work in various zones, which not only satisfied the need for agency but also promoted connectivity and learning.
Klotz also discusses our natural aversion to uncertainty, which can lead us to remain in familiar spaces because they feel comfortable. But the security of predictability can come at the expense of experiencing novelty, snuffing the torch of innovation . This could explain why some of our most creative ideas strike us once we’ve stepped out of the old familiar office.
Getting to a good place
Other ways to improve our spaces leverage insights from evolutionary psychology . A better understanding of humanity’s evolutionary past exposes the motivations behind our behavior today. It also illuminates why certain elements can help or hurt the spaces we use for work or play.
For example, our hunter-gatherer ancestors were drawn to open vistas, greenery, and water sources. Studies show that incorporating gardens or parks into cities increases well-being and reduces crime . Hospital patients in a room with a view of nature recover faster . Studies also show that symmetry and patterns induce alpha waves in the brain, a sense of “wakeful relaxation” associated with creativity and diminished anxiety .
Clutter is another well-established stressor. A mind in a room full of scattered objects feels scattered itself. A thoughtful effort to declutter your spaces can make a big difference in how you feel and work in that area, reducing distractions and anxiety while improving focus and clarity of thought.
Klotz cautions that the sterile, unnatural places we often create at home or at work may be why we feel out of place in our own space, and could jeopardize our general outlook on life: “Our manufactured environment, full of objects designed to serve specific purposes, may be training us to view everything—even nature itself—through the lens of utility. Instead of seeing a world to take part in, we see a world that’s there to function for us.”
What we do with our spaces, both individually and as a society, broadcasts who we are and what we value. We’d be wise to follow the evidence directing us to the features that make a good place great. To learn additional ways your spaces can be adapted to promote a desired mindset, In a Good Place is an indispensable guide.
Klotz, L. (2026). In a Good Place: How the Spaces Where We Live, Work, and Play Can Help Us Thrive. New York, NY: Little, Brown Spark.
Share this post Facebook Bluesky Linkedin Email
There was a problem adding your email address. Please try again.
By submitting your information you agree to the Psychology Today Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy
Bill Sullivan, Ph.D., is the author of Pleased to Meet Me: Genes, Germs, and the Curious Forces That Make Us Who We Are and a professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
Get the help you need from a therapist near you–a FREE service from Psychology Today.
This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.