Setting Up a Home Office. 10 Tips to Getting it Done Right the First Time

Setting up a home office can be a tremendous challenge.  How do you separate your work life from your home life when they occupy the same space?  Here are 10 tips to create a home office designed for maximum productivity.

1. Know yourself.

Think about your perfect working conditions.  Short of a lounge chair at the edge of the ocean on a warm sunny day, what do you see?  Do you have a large conference table and plenty of room to spread out?  Do you have a large recliner and a laptop desk?  What are your ideal working conditions?  Don’t just think about comfort.  What conditions do you work best in?  Is there music playing?  Is there a phone in your office?  What is on your desk?  In and out boxes? Is there a place for everything or are you more of a scattered creative type? Do you have pictures?  Plants?  A fountain?  The key is to envision your perfect productive space, not what you think should be your perfect productive space.

2. Don’t forget wall space.

What is on the walls of your office space right now?  Are they blank?  Are they covered with family photos?  What about inspirational prints with motivational sayings?  Do you have a large writing surface on your wall or a cork board?  Planning boards are fantastic if you’re a visual person.  You can use a whiteboard to draft the navigation of your website or create long range plans and a timeline.  Corkboards are excellent for posting notes, tasks, and ideas you don’t want to lose.

What about shelving?  Use your vertical space, your wall space, to optimize your home office.  Shelves are an excellent way to store items you frequently need while saving space on your desk and conserving valuable floor space.  An office that feels roomy and clutter free is often much more productive than an office that feels cluttered and disorganized.

3. Let there be light.

Natural light is best for productivity and feelings of well being.  However, natural light isn’t always an option.  Quite often home offices are built into the center of a home or worse…the basement.  Uniform ambient light is better for productivity than task lighting and it is better on your eyes.  For an expensive uniform lighting set up, consider natural spectrum fluorescent bulbs.  They last a long time and are good for your mood and the environment.

In addition to natural light, it is helpful to have a bit of ventilation. If you can open a window from time to time and get some fresh air, by all means do!  If there are no windows available in your home office, consider air purifiers, fans or some sort of ventilation system.

4. Don’t sit at the kitchen table!

Placing yourself right in the middle of the house and all of its activity is a certain time stealer.  How can you avoid distractions from chores, people, pets, and folks knocking at your door trying to sell you magazines or financial services?  While the kitchen table is great because it enables you to spread out and work in a comfortable location – there are probably plenty of windows and sunlight there too – there are no doors to keep out the distractions.

5. How much memory do you think you’ll need?

 The basic rule of thumb when setting up a home office is to buy as large of a computer as you can afford.  You might be surprised at how quickly your memory and storage will be used up.  If you don’t buy a big enough computer, you’ll end up having to buy a new one anyway.  If you already have a computer and a larger capacity computer isn’t in your budget, consider an external storage drive.

6. Backup regularly.

Speaking of external storage drives…it is imperative that you back your equipment up regularly.  I know that backing up takes time, sometimes it feels like it takes forever; however it is critical to the future of your business and your sanity that you back up.  Stop for a moment and consider what would happen if everything on your computer suddenly vanished.

For many, it might mean the end of their business, which is why it is critical that you not only back up regularly – weekly isn’t too frequent – you will also want to make sure your backup is working.  Backup and then go through the process of retrieving your information to make sure your backup is working the way it is supposed to.

7. Set up your office to function smoothly.

This means comfortable equipment, and processes that make sense for you.  Is your chair comfortable?  How about your keyboard and your desk positioning?  The more comfortable you are in your office, the more productive you’ll be.  If your wrist is hurting and your back is stiff, you’re going to work slower and chances are you’re going to be distracted.

What about the system you have set up.  Is everything you use frequently within easy reach?  Is your phone close by?  What about your files? Take a minute and look around your home office.  Is it set up optimally for you?

8. Organization and storage.

 Do you have a place for everything?  Storage and organization is extremely important when creating your home office.  If you skip this step you’ll spend much of your time trying to find things instead of getting them done.  Create a paper organization and storage system – file cabinet.  Also create an effective storage system on your computer.  For paper files, it is recommended that you have a file for every bank account, taxes, receipts, expenses, payables, receivables, marketing and sub folders for each marketing project.

Also consider keeping your copywriting ideas in a file.  On your computer the system will work much the same way. You’ll likely have major folders for each category and sub folders contained within.  For example you might have a category labeled Marketing, and sub categories labeled SEO, PPC, Direct Mail etc…

9. Do you need an address?

When you have a home address, it is tempting to have your business address be the same.  However, take a moment and step back.  There are distinct advantages to having a separate business address.  You are able to keep your home address private.  You are able to separate your work from your home legally.  Having a business address looks a little more professional than 1015 Butternut Circle on your business correspondence.  Additionally, having to go pick up the mail gets you out of your house on a regular basis!

10. Modems, and phones, and faxes oh my.

Do you need all of these fixtures cluttering your office?  There are numerous electronic devices available now like e-fax, wireless internet, and 800 numbers that are economical and can be forwarded to your cell phone eliminating the need for a separate office phone and line.

In fact, there are automated attendants that will answer your phone for you during your off hours, send them into your ‘business’ voice mail and actually email the message to you or forward it to your personal voice mail system.  All for less than $20 a month.

When it comes to working out of a home office, you make the rules.  What works for the masses in terms of organization, hours, processes and so on are not necessarily what will work for you. Develop a system that works for you and stick to it.  When you design a system and space that work for you, and stick to it, your productivity will increase ten fold and so will your profits.