Create the Home Office You Want to Work In

You’ve made it through training and now you’re ready to take your new digital marketing agency to the next level. You’re ready to start bringing on clients and successfully running your new business, but where are you working from? The coffee shop – that will get old quickly; maybe your kitchen table – you’ll find that you’ll be distracted easily. Maybe it’s time to think about putting together a home office. Below are 7 tips to keep in mind when pulling together your new home office.

• • Do you have the space? Ideally you’d want to take a spare bedroom that isn’t in use and create a home office there. If you don’t have a spare bedroom, Apartment Therapy has a ton of great articles about carving out an office from the space you do have.
    • Make a list of needs. This is important because you have to make the space you have suitable for your needs.
    • What equipment will you need to work comfortably from home?
    • Do you require multiple monitors? Will you need a desk large enough to accommodate those monitors?
    • Will you have clients come to the office to meet you? Will they require a place to sit?
    • Do you need storage space?
    • Above all make sure you pick a comfortable chair!!
  • Before you hang out the welcome mat, this step is an important
    • Get a separate line for the business phone number. You don’t want to compete for the line with your household, so don’t. Go VoIP!
    • Sign up with UPS for a business mailbox. This isn’t a P.O. Box and it’s not your home address, so you look even more professional.
    • Check your insurance. You’ll want to check that you and your equipment are covered by your renters or homeowners insurance policy, since you’ll be working from home. If you find that to not be the case, you’ll want to get covered a.s.a.p.
  • Lighting is incredibly important. A quick web search will net you various blogs about setting up the office lightning in your work from home. Ideally you want to use daylight bulbs and you don’t want to use fluorescent. If you have to use fluorescent lighting, don’t hang it directly above your computer set up. You’ll reduce glare that way.
  • Separate Yourself
    • You may work at home, but this work. You need to separate yourself mentally and physically off the bat. Get dressed every morning – don’t work in your pajamas. Make it clear to the others in the house if you live in a shared space that you are working when you are in the office so they can be respectful of this.
    • Create and Follow a Routine
    • Establish Office Hours
      • This will let your clients know when they can reach out to you. Yes, the point of working from home is the flexibility, but your clients will generally run on a normal business hours schedule. By laying out when your clients can reach you, you’ll set yourself up for success. Setting office hours can also help reduce distractions and prevent friends and family from dropping in unannounced.
  • You’ll need to set up a process for paying bills and sending invoices. How will your record keeping take place? You are your own boss now, so no one is going to tell you how or when to do these things. The responsibility falls to you.
  • Decorate! This is another step that I feel is super important. You are going to spend a large quantity of time in your office so make it a space you enjoy. Paint the walls if you can. Remember that purple inspires creativity, while blues, green, and violets, are soothing and relaxing. Grab attention with yellow, energetic with red, or minimize distractions with white or black. Put some artwork on your walls.

Make the space a space you enjoy. Have you created a home office? Do you have any tips or tricks you’ve found along the way to help? Leave us a comment with them below!

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