Five Things to Take Into Account When Planning a Home Office
A home office is a place within your home where you can sit down in comfort and concentrate on working efficiently at whatever brings the cash into your family. Yes, that is stating the obvious but it also epitomises the functions of the home office – all the keywords are there – home, comfort, concentrate, work, efficiently. If you do all those, the cash will follow. When you are planning the layout and set up of your home office, these considerations should be what drives the design. Equally, you don’t want to exceed your budget for furnishing it. Let’s look at each of those 5 elements in turn.
Home
You need a room or part of a room which has warm or cool colours, good lighting, fresh air and ideally a view out of a window which will stimulate you when you need to look away from your workstation.
Comfort
Everything needs to be on hand. You need a quality desk and chair if you are to work long hours.
Concentrate
The home office should not be in a thoroughfare nor in any location where there are flashing lights, loud noises or other distractions. If you have children or pets then they need to understand that access to your workstation is either forbidden or strictly controlled.
Work
Have a clock on the wall and set aside the times you will start and finish. Working from home is a privilege and not a soft option. If you do not have a conventional boss to tell you off because you are late, go early or make personal calls, then you need to imagine you do.
Efficiency
Design your home office ergonomically – with your filing cabinet, desk and baskets all within easy reach. Obviously what you have will depend on the nature of your business but you should not be distracted away from your desk and chair without very good reason.
Here are a few tips to keeping on top of things:
Go to a used office furniture warehouse to buy your desk, chair and other paraphernalia. For the same price as a low quality new desk, you can often pick up a very high quality ‘executive’ desk – probably owned by a company whose overheads were a lot higher than yours and which no longer is in business.
Get an electrician in to sort out the power points and cables. It will cost but it will be worth it when you don’t have to get down and untangle cables to clean behind them etc.
If you are on a tight budget, make shelves student style with bricks and planks. Don’t buy wire baskets, use plastic trays. Make filing cabinets with plastic carry-boxes or use cardboard archive boxes. Hijack any sturdy table.
Don’t over-personalise your desk – treat it like it you would if you were in corporate premises. After all, your place of work is your home office.
About the Author
Clive West has retired to Central Italy with his wife, Damaris. Clive was a civil engineer but now works as a writer from his home in the Italian mountains. You can read more about home office ideas at Home Office Furnishing or see more of his Helpful Guides
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