Creating A Home Office That Works For You
The constantly shifting economies of the world have left a lot of people either very suddenly unemployed or facing the prospect of becoming unemployed in the very near future. Previous recessions tended to only target the lower and middle income employees of the world but the current global recession has seen everyone from factory workers to legal eagles losing their jobs in, what has become, an unprecedented financial crisis which has touched literally every corner of our planet.
Fortunately the silver lining in all of these gray financial clouds is that people are now being presented with probably the first opportunity in their lives to start that business they’ve always dreamt about but never actually pursued – after all what have you got to lose at this stage right? Obviously when you’re first starting out you’re not going to be able to lease any kind of office space so having a home office makes perfect sense; this is, however, where most people struggle.
Just for once in your life you’re going to be able to decide exactly what your office looks like from the ground up so make sure it is exactly what you’ve always wanted. Now as tempting as it might sound to just work from your kitchen table or spare room on your laptop on an ad-hoc basis this is going to kill your productivity. If you want to be taken seriously when you start your home business or when you’re working from home then you’ll need a dedicated office space so this is step number one.
This space doesn’t need to be huge and can be located anywhere in your home as long as there’s no major distractions near you like a TV or a playpen. It doesn’t matter how focused a person you are – human nature means that you can’t multitask as effectively as you think you can, so avoid putting distractions beside or inside your home office. In this scenario distractions also means removing yourself from potential of being interrupted by neighbors, friends or even family. One of the biggest problems people working from home deal with is…well….the fact that they’re working from home. Far too many people will assume it’s ok to just drop over for a coffee or a chat and it’s usually difficult to get the message across that you’re actually busy with “real work” and that they’ll need to call you before they “drop over for a few minutes”.
So this now presents you with the possibility of modifying your working hours to make sure you’re as productive as possible. You’ll find that a lot of people running a home office tend to either get up far earlier than usual or work far later than usual. So instead of working a regular 9am – 5pm day you might work a 5am – 1pm day instead, or alternatively you might work from 5pm – 2am in the morning – this will all be based on your personal circumstances. The key is finding that block of hours during the day when you can be most productive and when you have the smallest possible number of distractions. Oddly enough most entrepreneurs tend to work later in the day for that very reason – peace and quiet.
When it comes to furnishing and equipping your home office keep it simple. Sure you can spend $10,000 on cutting edge computer equipment, the best inkjet printer in the store and a computer desk that will be the envy of your friends but that’s wasted money. In fact why not prove to yourself that you can be successful using the bare minimum of equipment and facilities instead? This helps prevent you becoming lazy or complacent and constantly working to the best of your abilities every single day.
If you achieve nothing else then make sure your home office is someplace that you enjoy working from because you’re going to be spending a lot of hours there creating a new future for you and your family.
