A home office is one of the first exciting steps towards running your own business. However, if every aspect of your space hasn’t been optimised for working, it may have an impact on your productivity.
Find the balance between your work style, home life and available space
If you need a quiet location to get on with your work, you could convert a garage or loft, or if you prefer a calming view, you should select a room facing the garden.
If you run a business from home so that you can look after the children, an office near the living room or kid’s bedroom would be the best location.
In some cases, it simply comes down to the available space. For some, dining rooms are an obsolete ideal, making it an ideal office space. For others, a cupboard room or spare bedroom that serves no purpose is the ideal candidate for a home office.
Avoid falling into the aesthetics trap
There’s an increasing number of offices that are adding unnecessary technology and furniture purely for the aesthetic rather than function. Take it from us, that 4K TV and wire rack of industry magazines are an expense your business doesn’t need, and will only serve to distract you from your work.
What furniture does your business need?
Will you be keeping lots of paperwork and written records? Then you’ll be needing plenty of storage for keeping it all secure and organised. Will you be working on the road a lot? Then maybe that &500 desk you’ve got your eye on isn’t a necessary business purchase. Your home office can be edited and rearranged at any time, but it's important you buy the right furniture to suit your business.
Choose the right equipment
A worker is only as good as his tools. Firstly, you need to decide what equipment is essential to your business. A high-quality laptop or desktop computer will likely be worth more to your business than a fancy iPad Pro. There’s also the seemingly vital equipment like printers. If you’ll be printing on a daily basis, then this justifies the purchase, but if you only need to print the occasional item, there are probably printer shops in your area that will only charge you pennies for their services.
Consider the colour of your room
We don’t know it, but we subconsciously interact with the colours around us. Cooler colours like blue and violet tend to relax us, whilst reds and yellows grab our attention and excite us. Finding the right colour combos that work for you is the key to creating the perfect home workspace.
