The most important thing to achieve to successfully work from home is physical separation between your work ‘zone’ and the rest of your home.

If you can’t achieve this separation, then your home life will be a constant distraction and compromise your professional productivity.

“Now, more than ever, we’re all doing more work, and for most families, both parents are contributing. To have a parent work from home can give the family great flexibility and make it easier to deal with school pickups and child care.”

- newhomesguide.com.au

Environment

To continue with that theme, those of you who do work from a home office will appreciate that environment and surroundings are everything. It’s crucial to carve out a space that allows you to focus and helps you maintain a boundary between your professional work and your house work.

Take a look at our little guide on how best to maximise your productivity in your home office:

Atmosphere is Everything

Whether you work from a lone desk or a room with wall-to-wall furniture, it’s important to create the right ambience for your work space. It needs to be a pleasant space to be in because you will be spending plenty of time there.

A pleasant atmosphere will, in turn, create a better mindset for concentrating and getting on with your work.

While you want a room that encourages focus and concentration it’s nice to have a few personal touches to add individuality and character and give your office space some warmth.

Whether it’s a colourful paperweight, fresh blooms, an antique piece of decor or a quirky wall hanging, give your home office some personality.

“Invest in your work space and make the most of what you have available. It really is an investment, because the more enjoyable your home office is to spend time in, the more productive you’ll be in that space.”

- newhomesguide.com.au

Creating a Divide

If your home office requires separate spaces or a clear divide, setting up a room divider is a great way to create separation without going as far as a renovation.

Room dividers offer the flexibility of easily applying colours and patterns to inject some fun and colour and create plenty of pop for a small investment.

A divider is also a great way of giving yourself ‘a breather’ in the office without retreating into your home and losing that working ‘mindset’.

Light & Space

As much as you possibly can, give your working space as much natural light as possible, and in general, choose an area that is naturally light and bright.

The last thing you want is to be shoved into a dark corner to work. That will not help your motivation and make it hard to achieve a happy home worker attitude, which is definitely possible with the right space.

Storage

Stay organised and keep your space tidy. Not many of us have the luxury of space in our home offices, so to make the most of limited room, make sure that it is easy to stay organised.

Choose a desk with plenty of built in storage, like drawers on both sides of the footwell, for example. Take a look around your local office supplier or home store for clever and funky on-desk storage solutions for your pens, paper and computer.

So, make your home workspace as nice as can be, achieve whatever seperation you can, and include plenty of clever storage options. 

Now, get back to work!