Work from Home Options

WFH (Work from He^% or Home?)

By now, many of us have become accustomed to the numbing routine of coffee at home, video calls galore and figuring out how to balance work and home. Throw in some boomerang college students or millennials or little ones doing remote learning, and all of a sudden, our sense of home has shifted. How to maximize your home office set-up?

The space: a dedicated home office (with a door, yay) is ideal. But many people I know are sharing that space with a partner or spouse or even the kids. Or they don’t have a dedicated space. Working at the island or kitchen table is ok, but at some point, you need a place to stash your stuff, a destination that lets you mentally shift gears, and sometimes some quiet.

Look around your house. Is your dining room underutilized? Is there a corner of your living room, guest room or your bedroom you could commission as a workspace? Requirements including enough room for a small desk, chair and outlets for a task light and your devices. There are desks that tuck into corners and sleek ones that look like real furniture and can be repurposed later. You can even convert a closet to an office, aka the “cloffice.”

What else you need: in addition to access to outlets, you probably want to assign your papers and some files to a basket or box that you can easily grab and store on the desktop or underneath. Keep it neat – go through paper daily and either take care of items or toss what you don’t need. File what you need for taxes, expense reports, etc. Keep desktop clutter to a minimum for a zen feel. Doing a lot of those pesky video calls? A pretty screen can give you some separation and a nice background and can be folded away when you’re not working.

General tips and tricks: I’ve worked from home more or less for 20+ years. If I don’t create some kind of separation, I would find myself working 24×7. Make your “office” a place you go for specific work hours. Tidy your space – put away your computer and papers at the end of the day and on weekends. Try not to bring work to bed.

We can help. Get in touch and we can help you figure out a work space.