Working at home often offers unique excitement. Any worker could function better in a well-organized workplace. Productivity could increase when the local atmosphere is perfect to concentration. In this case, the workplace should allow us to complete any task in a fraction of the time, compared if we need to perform it in a chaotic atmosphere. In this case, we should plan a functional and ergonomically sound area. This should be a good opportunity to marry functions with beauty. Well-designed workplace could pay huge dividends on many levels. It could worth taking more to think everything through. It is quite likely that our home office is a personal environment and can be customized based on our personal preferences and professions. Planning our home office, should be a one size fits all project, because it is a more personalized environment.
There are common equipments we need such as copier, telephone, answering machine, fax, printer and personal computers. But, we should be aware how big our space should be and whether it needs to be spread out. Overhead recessed lights are suitable for home office, but we also need desk lamps for more focused lighting. We may also need small meeting table with chairs, whiteboard, bookcase, work tables, file cabinets, cupboards and others. Because our home office is more personalized, we should consider adding beautiful view, music, proper colors, comfort and perhaps even a small refrigerator. It is also important to write down thoughtful critiques of our earlier workspace. We should add to the list things that we like about it and don’t. If we could improve our previous workplace, what should we do?
There are many ways to improve our workplace and factors to consider may include aesthetics, comfort, storage facilities, flow and functions. As an example, there should be a guideline on proper office planning and we should make sure that the guideline really works for us. Before we begin planning, we should consider some additional details. In some cases, we may need to add some ideas that suit our personality and work style. In this case, we should have a rather good sense of what we like from our home office. However, we could do this only after examining the space carefully. As an example, we should know how many square feet of our home that can be allocated for the home office arrangement. Check whether the shape of the room is ideal for a home office layout.
We may also need to know whether the interior should be air-conditioned in summer and if so, what kind of air conditioning system that will suit our requirements. Some of the rooms in the house are naturally warmer or cooler, so depending on our situation, we should check an ideal place. It is also a good idea to make sure that there’s a source of natural light in the room. Home offices often require many electrical outlets and we should find out how many of them we need. While many houses can do well without landline telephone, home office often need one for a variety of purposes, such as low-cost communication and fax.