One of the most important aspects of having an office or a workspace in your house or apartment is finding the space that will work for you. You can certainly set up your workspace anywhere you want, but if the space you’re setting up in is used for other things or isn’t typically used for what you’re using it for, you are going to expend a lot of your brain space with set up and take down every single time you go to use it.
This is something that I have experienced over the past few years. Because I do quite a bit of scanning on a regular basis I needed a place to do it. Unfortunately, the only place I had was actually my kitchen table. This was a convenient place for me to set up and do my work, but it for sure was not the most beneficial place for me to do what I needed to. It was right in the thick of things and I would put on a movie or the hockey game or whatever and do what I needed to. This plan sounds like a good idea, but the problem with being around where everyone and everything is, is that you get distracted by everyone and everything.
Now that I’m planning on having my own office I will be in a separate area, away from everything and everyone where I will be in a “distraction free” space. This is beneficial for me for a couple different reasons;
1) No more set up and take down – One of the best things about having a permanent space where you can work is that you can work there permanently. You will no longer have to worry about how long you’re spending in that space, when you have to shut down (which in my case was Dinner time as I would set up on my Kitchen table), and you won’t have to worry about having to clear away your equipment on a regular basis (something I was VERY guilty of forgetting).
2) You can claim the space as your own – I’ll be honest, the spot that I’m looking at to set up my office is currently being used as partial storage space, partial kid play zone. My kids haven’t played there in a while and I can rearrange the stuff that’s in there for storage purposes. When you make a space that you can work in and claim it as your own you will be able to do things to the room which will tell the other people in the house what it’s being used for. My Wife’s office is quite clearly her space to work. It has all the things that she needs to work, and a ready supply of tea, as she’s a serious tea drinker. I’m more partial to Coffee so it’s entirely possible that a coffee machine will make its way into my office, eventually.
3) Getting into the mentality of it – When you try to do your work in a “multi-function space” like a kitchen table or other such communal areas, it can be tricky to really get into the groove of getting whatever work you need to do. This is because when you’re in the middle of things distractions are far more plentiful, whereas when you are in a space separated from “all the action” it will be much easier to knuckle down and get to it.
As I plan my space I know that I’m going to come across stumbles and changes that I’m going to want to make. I’m sure that there will be a few different configuration changes, but that’s OK. Your space has to be your own, My space will be my own. Now that I have the list of stuff that I think I need, I will be getting that list ticked off and then I will be able to do my set up. I’m sure that my first configuration will not be my last, and that it will change as I go on. I think that the most important thing that you need to get sorted when starting your office is to get the physical space sorted out so then you can start planning around where it is you’re going to work.
Let me know in the comments section below. If you like this blog post and want to see more, you can follow me on Social Media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @jasonlovefiles) or Subscribe to my blog to get new content delivered directly to your mailbox.