Creating the perfect home office environment

Working from home shouldn’t mean just squeezing your desk into a corner of the house. You need to create the right working environment. Emma Jones suggests how.

Working from home makes it a whole lot easier to set up an office that perfectly suits you and your business. The first thing to do is find some dedicated space. That way, you can work without distraction, and close the door at the end of the working day.

Spare Room Start Up
You’ll work much better if you have dedicated office space. This space could be the spare room, the attic or the garden shed. Working at the end of the garden path is becoming increasingly popular and the garden office industry is booming on the back of it. Wherever you choose, look for space that has lots of natural light and use soft tones of blues and greens on the walls as these colours will make a home office – and you – work particularly well.

Furnishings
Once you’ve found space in the house (or outside the house) it’s time to furnish it.
The two most important pieces of furniture are the two you’ll spend most time at; your chair and desk. Buy a chair that’s designed for computer use – and try it out! Sitting in an awkward position can put your body under stress, so make sure you can adjust the chair’s height and angle to suit your pose. Ideally, your feet should be flat on the floor and back straight. Getting this right will make working from home so much more comfortable!
Invest in a good, sturdy desk that can accommodate your computer, monitor, keyboard and mouse. The top of your monitor should be at eye level and the monitor itself about an arm’s length away.
Scale furniture to the size of the room (if furniture is too tall, it can make the ceiling appear lower) and keep furnishings an inch or two away from the wall.

Cut out the clutter
A cluttered desk is like a cluttered mind. One way to avoid both is by having good storage. Here are some things to think about when buying storage:

. Buy boxes with lids and label them well
. If you have a lot of folders and boxes, consider a screen to hide them from view
. Buy a big box that can double as storage and a seat for visitors

To make the final touches to the perfect home office, how about a plant (reduces sense of isolation), a vision board (so you’re reminded of business goals and priorities each time you enter and leave the room) and a decent set of speakers so you can dance away in the home office, celebrating a new deal or sale!

Emma Jones is the founder of Enterprise Nation, the home business website, and author of ‘Spare Room Start Up – how to start a business from home’.     

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