When you decide to work from home, whether it be full-time or every now and then, you need to take your time creating an inviting and professional office. For some people, this is as simple as putting a desk in a spare room, but for others, the process is much more complicated and requires a lot of time and planning. Regardless, creating a workable office requires some thought or mistakes will be made that could negatively impact your work. To help you avoid such mistakes, here are six common ones for you to avoid.
Alienating Messaging
It may sound obvious at first, but be careful to avoid alienating your customers with negative messaging. For example, today’s political climate is a bit divisive. You might want to post something political on your e-store’s social media pages, but before you do so, ask yourself if this is the best thing for your business. If you operate a retail site selling political T-shirts, then it’s probably “on brand.” If you sell designer watches, then it will probably distract customers from what you’re selling.
Selecting A Bad Location
The first obstacle that you’re going to come across when designing your office is choosing the best location. Ideally, you should have a quiet room to yourself away from distractions, but this isn’t always possible. If you have to share a room with something else, such as putting your office in the dining room or home gym, ask family to leave you in peace while you’re working and give yourself some private space by putting up a divider.
Making It Too Comfortable
Your home office should be comfortable enough that you can remain in there for hours without any trouble, but it shouldn’t be that comfortable that you want to go in there to lay back and take a nap at the weekend. Rather than have a comfortable couch or executive chair in your office, get a desk and ergonomic chair, so you feel a little less relaxed and a whole lot more productive, without sacrificing comfort.
Forgetting The Phone
Most people don’t even think about business telephones when they set up a home office, but this can be a huge mistake. If you give out your mobile number as your professional number, then people are going to call this when they want to talk to you about business, meaning that you’ll have to keep your phone on you at all times. This means that you’ll hear every social media, text message, and game notification, which is going to get distracting quite quickly.
Lack Of Storage Space
If you have lots of documents, notes, and files that you need for work, then your home office needs to be so much more than a table and a laptop: It needs storage. Without sufficient storage, your office is going to get messy, which is going to affect your ability to work. If you can’t find a particular document you need, this will also affect your productivity. There are so many storage options out there, so find something that works for your space.
Picking The Wrong Colour
If you don’t put enough thought into the colour of your office, then you’ll probably live to regret it. If it’s too dark, you’ll end up feeling tired and cramped, but if it’s too bright, the room could be left feeling cold and clinical. Before you get out your paint brushes, really think about the colour you have chosen and decide if it will definitely work for you.
If you don’t get your home office just right, it could massively affect your productivity, so follow the tips above to avoid making any major mistakes.
