Advice on Working From Home. Design expert Deborah Burnett gives you tips on creating a home office space that inspires professionalism and efficiency. To everyone making the daily trek to a downtown office,...
To everyone making the daily trek to a downtown office, these three words sound like heaven - working from home. Envisioning a peaceful retreat, we daydream about accomplishing our work from home yet with all of the benefits of the office; a separate and personal work station, ample lighting, and that elusive but necessary quality found in most office buildings - professional atmosphere.
Like millions of others, I also tired of the daily drive and began the challenge of working from home. In the beginning, I made simple modifications to our basement and began my professional practice as a registered interior designer and licensed building contractor. Concentrating only on the functionality and appearance of my desk area, I failed to recognize the importance of the "feeling " or atmosphere of that space. Afterall, I was working from my home and no one but me was ever going to see my office, so what did it matter that my desk was situated next to the family television set or that I couldn't see to the outside? Sure, clients were plentiful and my workload was handled, but I was having a hard time trying to "make myself" sit down and go to work. The fact was, I just didn't feel professional while I was working from home.
Over the years, I've come to understand that working from home has many rewards along with a unique set of challenges not faced in a traditional office setting. Gradually, I began to accept the interruptions to conference calls: overflowing toilets, kids crying, door bells ringing and pets barking, and eventually realized that we can't always control those unexpected "unprofessional" situations, but that we CAN decide to improve our work space environment so that, by it's very nature, the design of the office space will actually help us to work from home by creating a more peaceful, productive and professional atmosphere.
With just a few affordable and simple modifications to the space, light, and color of an area that a home office will occupy, we can actually make a dramatic improvement not only to the finished design style, but to the way we actually "feel" when performing everyday work practices. To get you started on creating a more professionally productive office area in your home, check out these affordable tips:
· Before we can begin to modify a space, you first need to "see" that room with renewed clarity. In other words, to be able to take a look at the areas where you work as if you were a first time visitor. Since it's hard for most of us to objectively evaluate a room that we see everyday, you'll first need to create a safe perspective for objective clarity. You do this by taking several photographs of your office area. By reviewing the photos, you will be able to critique the space objectively much as you do a room in a magazine photo.
· Now, with pen and paper in hand to record your observations, examine the pictures for nearby family-life distractions such as: piles of laundry, kids' toys, and TV sets. Take a minute and then record a few thoughts on how to reposition your office space to another location within your home, or if you're stuck with using only that exact floor space, why not plan on physically moving the toys, TV sets etc. so that they are no closer than 15 feet from your desk area. By simply removing this activity or by repositioning them so that they're out of your line of vision while seated at your desk, you'll be amazed at the difference a few feet can make.
· Now notice the type and quality of lighting on or near your desk: table lamps, overhead and recessed light fixtures, and most importantly nearby windows and skylights. Remember that a well designed office, whether it's a home office or an elegant high rise, will have several types of lighting all designed in a layering effect to give both general and task illumination to the entire area. In plain English, this means a bare minimum of one adjustable desk lamp, three overhead ceiling lights and at least one window or skylight within 7 - 10 feet of your desk. When reviewing the photos for natural and artificial lighting, most of the time we fail to realize that adequate lighting is not only essential in our job performance but that it will greatly influence the way we feel while working in our office. To understand the significance of light on our feelings and emotions, just think about the last time you found yourself home alone at night during a power outage.
· Don't forget to check out the wall and carpet color; if in the photo it appears to be bland and nondescript, you may want to consider upgrading to - color! By simply changing the wall color to a medium-based hue, a color found in the middle of most paint store sample charts, you will be able to increase the warmth and personal comfort level to one that is more aptly suited to a professional environment. Afterall, when was the last time you noticed an office building interior where the main color scheme was dull off white? And when you consider that leading social researchers have found that the use of wall and ceiling color, particularly in our work environment, has been clinically proven to dramatically improve productivity levels and promote a sense of well-being isn't it about time that you thought about a color other than off white?
Working from home offers many rewards and lots of challenges, but when you add the key ingredients of space, light, and color, we can perform our life's work in a space that appears professional, while at the same time allowing us to work with a greater sense of professionalism ... and just think... all of this from a place we call home!
