How do features of the work environment such as type of pen or color of paper influence productivity and workplace well-being? Background: Recently I have been doing mathematics a whole lot,and I have noticed that my output varies wildly from many external factors,but mostly it is the enviorment I am working in. Namely one of the most unexpected things is that most my output depends on the quality of pen I am using and kind of notebook I am writing in. Last day I went to buy new notebooks and I laid my eyes upon one with especially distinguishing blue-white color scheme,and in my mind it was already set that it will be notebook I will write abstract algebra into,and truly while using that notebook I feel really motivated, it feels like the color of it and the subject of abstract algebra are intertwined in my brain.

Questions:


What is the phenomena called where features of the work environment such as type of pen or color of paper influence productivity or workplace well-being? 
How can such features be used to improve productivity?
Environment can be highly motivating through positive and negative forces. The conditions of the world motivated the scientists of the Manhattan project to violate some of their ethics and risk destroying the world in order to create the atomic bomb. Likewise also the oppressed scientist some of which where Jews who were forced into labor on the same project destroyed and sabotaged their work in order to prevent the weapons control by the Nazi's. Then also the USSR was not capable of creating an atomic bomb because of their culture conformity to a specific tenant of Bolshevik and Stalinism stating the atom cannot be subdivided. Galileo also comes to mind yet slaves built the pyramids. These principles of being open free to create, having every comfort of home and preference then motivated in a social and personal way free from tyranny of governmental and cultural oppression allow people to do their best work.
Freud would say your maternal or paternal figure may have wore a blue and white dress during a birthday party or Christmas or other extremely positive event in your childhood which caused you to associate those colors with successes. Which no one could prove unless you happen upon some memory of why those colors are important to you. Likewise also you (or someone else) may have had success with some kind of work or test with a specific kind of pen or pencil. This irrational association connecting certain operating items and conditions with success is fundamental to the human condition.
See below paper for further information:

Effects of Perceived Work Environment on Employees’ Job Behaviour and Organizational Effectiveness
A.K. Srivastava
The study examined the effect of two constituents of work environment (i.e. physical and psychosocial on employees’ job satisfaction and performance, and organizational effectiveness in a sample of 360 technical supervisors and operating core personnel. The analyses revealed that participants who perceived their work environment as to be adequate and favourable scored comparatively higher on the measures of job satisfaction, performance, and perceived organizational effectiveness. The two constituents of work environment were also found causing significant variance in employees’ job behaviour and their perception of organizational effectiveness. Regression analyses revealed that among the various components of work environment, working condition, welfare provisions, interpersonal relations, and trust and support predominantly contribute to employees’ job behaviour and organizational effectiveness. The results also specified that psycho-social environment in work-place exert more impact on employees’ job behaviour and organizational effectiveness than the physical environment does.