Whether you work from home full-time, or hold a side interest, a good home office is fundamental to ensuring your productivity is high.
Everyone has heard of the term ‘bedroom business’, which implies that anyone who works from home sits in their pyjamas tapping away at their computer desk, tucked away in the corner of the bedroom. While not to say this never happens, most that make a living working from home have a room that is dedicated for their work.
As the average person will spend over 90,000 hours in an office in their lifetime, the home office has to ensure that their work space fulfils their needs. Below we have listed six essentials for a productive home office.
Computer Desk
It is an obvious one, but there are many who opt to sit with a laptop on their lap whilst sitting on the sofa in front of the television. Not only is the lure of watching mind-numbing daytime television counter-productive, this does nothing to separate your working area from normal living space.
Computer desks are the focal point of your working space, so picking the right one where you feel comfortable working at for a set number of hours isimperative. If you can, try to invest in a desk that not only has enough room for your computer, but one which can fit trays, notepads and comes with draws.
Storage
A large computer desk brings this post nicely into our second home office must have – storage. When working from home you are going to accumulate a lot of important documents that will need to be organised and stored safely, mostly for tax purposes.
Ensuring your home office is equipped with plenty of storage space will also help to win the fight against clutter. A messy office is not a productive one, so keep tidy and make sure that everything has a place and that it goes back in it.
WiFi/Reliable Internet Connection
A reliable internet connection should be high up on any list of home office essentials. Without one, your communication with clients is limited, as well as putting you in danger of missing deadlines which is bad for business and your reputation. Not to mention it’s the ultimate first world problem.
If your wireless router is known to play up from time to time, now is the time to invest in a new and more reliable model. Failing that, connecting your computer to the internet via an ADSL cable will win the fight against poor Wi-Fi signal.
Printer
Another obvious pick, but still very much a must have for any office – the printer. Widely regarded as the most temperamental part of the technological family, a printer has the capacity to ruin your day with something as simple as a paper jam.
Although cheap printers are available, it really is worthwhile spending that little bit more to invest in a good one, especially if you will be doing a lot of printing. Not only will your printer last longer than a couple of months before giving up the ghost, purchasing a more efficient printer will see you save money on ink costs.
Shredder
Important documents must always be stored, but any files that are not needed and only take up space should be shredded and recycled. A shredder will make your life easier when discarding confidential documents that contain valuable information (such as bank details and addresses etc…).
A small shredder can be placed underneath a computer desk or out of the way, depending on how often your foresee yourself making use of it.
Own Room
As has already been stated in this post, dedicated room is essential for productivity. Having a dedicated room for your home office acts as a division between work and home, even though the two intertwine, and will help keep you focused and motivated.
It takes a special sort of person to be able to work from home effectively, with little to no social aspect to your day-to-day routine. Dedicated quarters allow for you to decorate your office exactly how you see fit, and minimise any potential distractions.
If you can already account for all of these six of must haves, productivity in your home office will already be high. If not, then consider this list a solid foundation on the way to improving your home office.
