So, you’ve finally been given clearance to work from home. You’re excited because now is your chance to finally prove to your boss that this would actually be in their best interest and not be a reason for you to start working on e-mails in the morning in your bunny slippers. Well, OK, maybe it is a reason to start work in your bunny slippers but the work comes first. What to do, then, to ensure the space you choose to toil in for your working hours is set up properly?
First, you need the right equipment. You can forget about being tied down with a sprawling tower computer that looks like it was made in a shipping box, you need to come into the 21st century with some portable power. A good six hundred dollar laptop will be just as robust and fast as your desktop counterpart but will have the added bonus of allowing you to be mobile should you decide that your home office is better suited inside a coffee shop than it is your back bedroom.
Secondly, working space. You do need to separate your working life and your waking life by partitioning out your desk area. A place to house your paper archives, a desk that can contain your work ephemera, an
ergonomic chair that will keep you working well into the afternoon, you need somewhere to call your own and that isn’t the corner of your bedroom. Deciding on a space is vital to the success of your home office because it’s the area dedicated to your actual work. It ought to be away from regular home activities and be somewhere, just like a formal office setting, be somewhere quiet and will allow you to focus.
Creating a home office, ironically, has a lot to do with creating an environment similar to your more traditional office dwellers. If you’re able to consider some of the more fundamental issues that can set you up for success you’ll be better poised to make management believers that you really can be more productive at home, with or without your slippers.