Is your home office working with you or against you? The layout of your office, choice of furnishings and other seemingly minor details can have a tremendous impact on your comfort, efficiency and productivity. Consider these seven elements of an optimal home office that, taken together, can make you more efficient:
- Separate means productive. Christopher Grubb, president of Arch-Interiors Design Group in Beverly Hills, California, believes people who work at home need a psychological separation from their work and living space. 'If the house is Spanish in design, we might give the home office a more contemporary feel,' he says. Christine D Moriarty, a certified financial planner who works from her home in Bristol, Vermont, adds: 'Always have a door. Then, close the door on weekends, evenings or whenever you're off. The visual boundary will make you think twice about working when you need a break.'
- Hide the clutter. Clutter—whether binders, piles of paper or that extra filing cabinet you need to squeeze around—are distractions and productivity thieves. Grubb is a great believer in the philosophy of 'out of sight, get more done'—so he hides CPUs, printers and shredders in credenzas and cabinets. He runs cables inside table legs to keep them out of the way. Consultant James Sinclair adds, 'Have every paper, business card and receipt scanned so that you have as little clutter as possible and access to information without looking through file boxes.'
- Consider who shares the space. Will your home office also serve as the guest bedroom? Will you ever meet with clients in your home office? Will it turn into a family room after work hours? Will you have other workers at times? All these considerations will affect the layout and decor. Think multifunctional: If the office will be a guest bedroom, for example, a sleeper sofa might make sense.
- Think of all your senses. Hardwood floors might look great in the living room. In your office, you might consider a throw rug to reduce noise. Make sure you have good task lighting and some natural light.
- Can you expand? The ideal home office today might constrict you later as your needs change and your business expands. For example, your printer or fax machine might fit perfectly into that custom-built cabinet today. However, when you upgrade or add technology, you might have a round peg in a square hole. Grubb designs cabinets with removable shelves that can be configured as storage needs and technology change. When it doubt, over-scale.
- Make your back the CEO. Sure, you can find a cheap desk chair at an office supply store that fits in well with the décor. But if you're spending eight or nine hours a day in your office, it makes sense to purchase ergonomic furniture. Over the long run, you'll have less wear and tear—on the furniture and your back.
- Give yourself an outlet. With the plethora of mobile phones, laptops and other devices that always need charging, put in additional outlets, but consider keeping the space pleasing by building the outlets into drawers or 'pop-up' mechanisms in desktops. Always choose PCs with more ports than you think you need—they'll come in handy later.
