If you’re going to work from home, having a home office is important! Like the most important thing to your success. Just because you don’t have to go into an actual office every day doesn’t mean you don’t need a designated work space.
Here are 6 elements of a productive home office.
1. Have a work space of your own. Your coffee table and couch will not cut it. Even if it’s just a corner of your bedroom, living room or kitchen and not a completely separate room, find or make a space somewhere in your home that’s just to be used for work. The same place that you sit and watch reruns of Seinfeld cannot be the same area you use to get serious about working.
2. File stuff away. Be sure to have a filing cabinet. If you thought that working from home was going to ensure that you never had to file papers every again, you thought wrong. You’ve got to keep records of everything you do. If it’s mystery shopping, print out copies of all of your reports. It’s good to have hard copies of everything you do. Same with receipts for purchases you make for the work.
3. If a normal office has it, you should have it. Just because you’re not in an actual office building doesn’t mean you don’t need internet, a fax machine, a printer, a phone, writing utensils, etc. If you’ve got it at work, you need it in your home office. Look in the newspaper for coupons to office supply stores around town because you’re going to need supplies.
4. Have a calendar just for work. Put it on the wall or on your desk or keep it on the computer. This does not include your social life. Just work. If you’re only doing mystery shops, schedule shops as you sign up for them and do them on the day you decide. No procrastinating, no postponing.
5. Email address just for work. Don’t mix business with pleasure. This goes for your email address, too. It’s just best to keep work and play separate or you’ll get confused and your inbox will overflow – and something will slip through the cracks.
6. To Do List. Whether you stick post-it notes all around the room, keep a list on your phone or use a yellow legal pad, you need to keep a to do list because if you don’t, chances are, you will most probably forget everything you have to do.
Obviously, these aren’t the only things you’ll need to successfully work from home, but they’re helpful. If you keep your work space separate, organized and clean, you should be in good shape!
What is a must-have for you in your home office?
Lindley K