His Five Tips for Setting Up a Home Office
Yesterday I have you Toni’s tips for setting up a home office and you can find them at Her Five Tips for Setting Up a Home Office. Now here are my five tips for setting up a home office.
- 1. Power Outlets – you can’t have too many power outlets and Murphy’s Law dictates that you will always have one less than you really need.
2. Suitable desk or table – it’s nice to lash out and buy a fancy desk but you may not need that at all. Toni works from a very nice desk (that was a cow to assemble) while I work from a cheap table that we bought at a hardware store. It’s longer than a normal desk and I can fit all the junk on it I need.
3. Phone lines – in today’s world of cordless phones you will still need at least one phone line in your home office – for the modem that allows you to connect to the Net.
4. Location – your home office needs to be in a quiet part of the house away from all the noise that the kids will make. It’s hard to produce quality work when the kids are on the rampage.
5. A good chair – it’s an investment in your future. The more uncomfortable you are the more your productivity will drop. You should also be prepared to replace that chair every 12 months … or even more frequently. Once you feel that your chair fits you like a glove then it’s time to ditch it and buy a new one.
So now you have our ten points to consider when setting up your home office. There are certainly others as well but they were the ones that were at the top of the list for us.
August 25th, 2006 at 11:15 pm
Great tips.
I’d say that a chair you sit on is THE most important thing in your office. Depending on the chair you’ll be either tired after 5 hours of work or you’ll be fresh as if you just started.
This is one item you can not try to save money on.
P.S. You should add a check box for people who comment to be able to get notified whenever someone else comments on the same post. There is a plug in for that I used on my blog. Take a look.
September 1st, 2006 at 10:53 am
Thanks for the tip Igor - I’ve been meaning to do that for a while now.
November 29th, 2006 at 10:56 pm
I would also say a “closed” sign too.. or at least an ability to close the door on your home office at the end of the day so that you get a chance to let go and relax. Home offices can run your life and you can find yourself popping onto that room and forever doing the odd job.
Some people find self-motivation difficult when working from home whilst a lot more who really love their home business find it difficult to switch off and let go.