Small Office, Home Office Information

For those of you who are not regular readers let me say that Toni and I have been working from home for over five years and in that time we have identified a number of things that we see as important considerations when setting up a home office.

Over a cup of coffee on the weekend we sat down and each of us listed five of the most important factors to look at when planning your home office. Interestingly each of us chose four things that the other did not. So today here is Toni’s list of 5 tips for setting up a home office:

1. Desk position – I don’t like my back to the door and you should avoid placing your desk in such a way that direct sunlight falls across it.

2. Make sure you have an ergonomic chair – it will undoubtedly cost more money but if you spend a lot of time at your desk it is very definitely a major investment in the future success of your business.

3. Space for Shelving and Drawers – every office needs shelving and it needs drawers too. Unfortunately the style of office desk that most of us might choose will probably not have enough drawers so make sure there is space in the room you want to use for your office for more drawers.

4. Heating and cooling – it’s vital that your office is warm enough to work in during winter and cool enough to work in during summer. Fans and heaters will be important so make sure that you can fit them in without having everything blow off the desk when the fan is on and scorching the furniture when the heater is on.

5. Light and airy – gloom tends to lead to you feeling down. Our second home office was in a room that incorporated a lot of dark, heavy timberwork. Fortunately it also had big windows that let a lot of light in.

And to show you how Toni’s office looks here is a photo:

It may not look all that neat with the mess of cables hanging off the back of everything but it certainly is functional. There are extra drawers tucked away under the desk and a large bookcase is off to the right of the picture.

Tomorrow I’ll share my 5 tips for setting up a home office.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006 at 8:15 am and is filed under General Info. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.