While many people assume working from home means lying on the couch, bed, or in your garden and work. But productivity increases when you have a proper working space at home. To set up a home office is to give you the feeling of a work environment and enhances your productivity simultaneously.
The home office provides many advantages, like the flexible schedule, reducing your daily commute thereby, saving time, money, and energy. It encourages you to set up a new business with minimal investment and maintenance.
However, the office at home also involves a lot of distraction and temptation. Therefore it gets challenging to focus on your work. The home office can be created anywhere. It can be a guest room or a storeroom, or a spare closet.
What Factors Help To Set Up A Home Office?
To create a professional workplace that separates your business from personal life is its location and lighting, which are some important elements to be taken into consideration. It should be a place that stimulates creativeness, concentration, and contentment.
In the current article, I will discuss few tips to help you create your workstation at home and make it a success.
1. Plan Your Requirement before Setting up a Home Office
While planning for your home office, you need to plan out the elements essential for your office. Create a detailed list of your requirement for setting it up. Depending on the nature of your work you may need a small desk for your computer and a large-sized table. It may also demand some papers, pens, files, and other office supplies.
If you are a consultant, you might need additional areas for your file cabinet or desk and drawers. If you are a photographer, then you need an additional storage area for props and lighting equipment.
The temperature of the room should be comfortable and soothing. Arrange your telephone or opt for a portable phone to attend to calls without missing it or any kind of disturbances. Go for hard flooring so that the furniture in your room can be moved around without damaging the floor.
2. Choose The Best Setting
Your home office should be set up in a quiet area where you get some privacy. Some people choose an empty bedroom, basement as a dedicated office area. But in case of space crunch, it becomes essential to think smartly and creatively for your office space. In that case, look out for idle corners in bigger rooms or even under the stairs.
However, if you stay with your family or roommates, then identifying a suitable area becomes very vital. A room with a door would be an ideal option to keep you away from the noise. Further, this will help if you have to attend frequent phone calls.
Choosing the room near the house entrance should be preferred, as that will make it easier for you to entertain your clients and other work-related elements like courier exchange. A separate room with locks, away from family, always ensures confidentiality.
3. Maintain An Organized Room
The disordered room does not provide an appropriate environment to work in. It creates a lot of distractions and reduces your efficiency. So it is always better to get rid of unwanted items from the room. Keep your workstation organized.
If you have limited storage space in your home office, then shift your less frequently used items to another part of the house. Make sure to include a power backup to protect the work done on a computer. Store your backup disc in a safe area of the room.
4. Comfortable Sitting Arrangement
The sitting area should be one where you feel comfortable sitting for hours with the right posture and can relax simultaneously. Opt for an ergonomic chair with the right height and proper back and arm support. You can place a small footstool under your desk to rest your feet. While purchasing an ergonomic chair, go for the one with the following features
a. Adjustable backrest and armrest
b. Adjustable depth of the seat
c. Swivel base that rotates 360°
d. Adjustable height
e. Inbuilt lumbar support
Choose a table with a slide-out keyboard holder and place it for CPU. Usually, this will ensure more space for you on the table for other additional work like reading or writing. The placement of the mouse should be such that it is accessible and your wrist gets cushioning.
5. Proper Light Availability
Your home office should be a well-ventilated area with a lot of natural light as it enhances your energy and efficiency. Exposure to the same improves your physical and mental health in the long term. Natural light reduces headaches and strain on the eyes. Besides that, go for a firelight which encourages relaxation.
Additionally, install a light over your working area to avoid any reflection of the computer monitor. Furthermore, this allows you to work for longer hours without any strain on your eyes.
6. Suitable Color
Selecting the appropriate color for your home office is vital. But the color that you choose should depend on the nature of the work that you do. If you are in the creative field, choose a color that enhances creativity, jobs with a lot of concentration should select calming colors.
Try to go for stress reliving colors like blue, tan, purple, and green. Because this color gives you the feeling of working under the sky or near to the ocean. According to Fengshui, green signifies calmness, growth, and decisiveness. This color stimulates creativity. Green plants are other excellent alternatives to add greenery to your home office.
Furthermore, few colors should be avoided while designing your home office. A few of them are red color which causes nervousness; lime green, bright orange, which leads to distraction; white color causes exhaustion and eye strain.
Instead, go for happier colors which are associated with brighter shades like yellow. It is an appealing and mood-enhancing color. But excess yellow color should be avoided as doing so may causes overstimulation. Bright colors are warm colors that always give a happy feeling.
7. Invest In Wi-Fi
Investing in Wi-Fi with a strong signal is very important for smooth and efficient workability in your home office. You may also need to invest in a Wi-Fi extender or Wi-Fi mesh system to stay connected with your clients.
8. Tracking Time
A home office is a cozy area that can be set up anywhere and at any time. Usually, people working from home overwork compared to those in a traditional workspace. To track time in your office, hang a clock on the wall or set the alarm on your phone.
Keeping track of time helps you to break up your day effectively. Additionally, this supports a healthy work-life balance and maintains work hours regularly.
Therefore, it is evident that the productivity of home offices flourishes where creative thoughts blossom with minimal distraction and healthy atmospheres. The above tips can be followed to optimize your workstation, thereby increasing your chances of better productivity.
