How to Create a Home Office: Tips from an Experienced Freelancer

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The author of the Telegram channel "Pasha and His Procrastination" is about how to work remotely and remain effective.

Together with Flatplan, we are launching a special project on how to competently equip an apartment so that it is pleasant to live in it. Flatplan is a service for creating interior design projects. Working on a project, designers consult with experts: he knows how to make an apartment comfortable for sports, and how to create the perfect kitchen. In a joint project, we seek advice from experts from various fields.

In this article, Pasha Fedorov will tell you how to organize a workspace in a small apartment.

For five years, I went through all the hardships of being remote: small children, small space, inactivity. Now he knows exactly how not to do it.

You've probably seen beautiful pictures of guys and girls with laptops sitting on the ocean shore and watching the sunset, "work". The reality is much more prosaic.

Most often, a freelancer's office is a kitchen with borscht boiling on the stove, a loggia clogged with rubbish, or a small corner in the only room in the apartment.

The main problem with remote work is the blurred line between work and home.

The hardest part was when the youngest daughter was born. You cannot say to a newborn child: "Lilechka, lie down while I work, do not play around."

And colleagues will not be able to say: "Chao, office monkeys, I'm home." Yes, you finished everything at five o'clock, went to rest. But at nine, one of the office colleagues sent a letter, and for some reason you read it and immediately answered.

Growing up, children begin to pull over trifles: give a drink, open a box with toys.

The moment when words go one after another, inspiration came, and then - bam! You need to be a horse, because the doll is very sad without a perky horse, and how can you, dad, do not understand that this is really important.

Such things take a couple of minutes, but the mood and concentration are dramatically lost.

Once, during a Skype meeting, Vasilina appeared in the background with a ponyah. How to explain to a three-year-old child that the marketing department of a large Internet company is looking at her and she is a little out of time?

The table at which I used to work became a pasture in the evening, or a dinosaur cave, or just a place where cartoons are shown.

It was impossible to continue like this, so I upgraded the workplace. Now I have a separate table, on which everything I just want: from stands for books and an additional monitor to comics and games. There is room for Rubik's cubes, a tripod, aloe and sprouting lemon balm, notebooks for all occasions and Pokemon games to distract from work.

But these are all half measures. From my difficult experience, I can give one main and six related tips for arranging a workplace.

It is better to contact the pros who will take into account all the nuances and make it beautiful.

7 principles of organizing a workplace at home

1. Separate

If you work from home, you should have a separate office. Point. A small room is enough - 9-12 square meters.

If the apartment is one-room, isolate the place where your table will be. Designers are great at zoning the premises: it seems to be a single whole, but the border of places is clearly traced. This makes it psychologically easier to switch from work to rest and vice versa.

Zone the space not with massive partitions, but with finishes. For example, if you have a work area in your bedroom, you can highlight it with a different color. A shelving unit is also suitable for zoning in a small room. Go for a slim, backless model for a lighter look and let in natural light.

Advice from Flatplan

2. Maintain contrast

Don't sleep where you work.

I know people who wake up, take a laptop out from under their pillow and immediately start working. If you sleep, work, and relax in the same room, then the line between work and personal life is not just blurred, but completely erased.

More often than not, people work at home with a laptop, so there is no need to allocate space for a desk right in the room. If the apartment has an insulated balcony, then it can be used as a working area. In a studio apartment with a bar in the kitchen, it can be easily adapted to fit a laptop. You just need to choose a comfortable bar stool with armrests and a high back.

Advice from Flatplan

3. Work dressed

Not in a suit and tie, but definitely in clothes. It can be home shorts and a T-shirt, but you must wear them. It is good if there is a small chest of drawers or wardrobe in the office where you can put a change of clothes.

4. Create an environment for breaks

Establish a clear work schedule. Colleagues should get used to the fact that you are at your place from 9 to 19 o'clock and you should not bother you before and after this time, and your family will get used to the fact that you are at work until seven in the evening, they should not pull you over trifles.

Solve household issues in short breaks, like in the office - for a poo or a cigarette, only in your case - to put a kettle on or run for eggs.

It is helpful to recharge the internal batteries occasionally during the day.

Hang blackout curtains on the windows and buy a comfy chair.

Just ten minutes in a relaxed position, with closed eyes, in silence and twilight, can bring back inspiration.

5. Get rid of excess

There should be no extraneous things in the office: no garbage dump or dusty boxes that should have been thrown out 20 years ago.

But the table should be spacious to fit everything you need to work (from a couple of monitors to a stapler). Eye-catching trinkets can be placed on top of the shelves.

For a comfortable storage organization, choose a table with built-in shelves or side tables. Nowadays, magnetic chalk or decorative boards are popular, on which it is convenient to place various little things. One of the walls can be completely finished with a cork board - this option will not only solve functional problems, but also help create an interesting accent in the space.

Advice from Flatplan

6. Go

I would also like to say about the notorious healthy lifestyle. At the beginning of 2017, I had a difficult period during which I gained a lot of weight. Don't repeat my mistakes.

Allocate at least 15 minutes a day to walk. For potatoes to the market, two circles around the house, just a walk - no difference. Go! If you have iron willpower and space allows, put a sports simulator in the office. Take two or three breaks during the day to work out on it. If space is limited, do not miss any opportunity to move and buy dumbbells or at least a hoop.

7. Don't neglect rest

It's good if your home micro-office is locked with a key. Especially on weekends.

Hide the key in the duck, the duck in the hare, the hare in the chest, and put the chest on the timer so that it opens on Monday morning.

Don't take your weekend away!

Take a walk, meet friends, run to your parents. If you sit at home all the time, then you can not only gain excess weight, but also lose loved ones.

You can get a flat plan based on all these principles in just a week.

You choose a concept from a special selection or with the help of a test, meet with the measurer and get a project completely ready for implementation. In addition to the design concept, it includes handy checklists of everything you need for repairs and simple drawings for the construction team.

At the same time, the complexity and area of a room or apartment does not affect the final cost of the project. Fixed price - 29,900 rubles.

So, if you have long dreamed of a cool workplace and do not want to spend a lot of time and effort on rebuilding, click on the button below. Still have questions? Click anyway: great guys work at Flatplan, they are always ready to answer your questions.