How to prep your space to work from home

Working from home — it's easy right? You keep on your pajamas, stumble out to your computer, pet your dog and start your day's work. This morning schedule might work out for the first few weeks, but once the novelty wears off, you'll find your productivity suffers from treating your work space like this. In most cases, the way your home office is set up is not sufficient for keeping yourself happy with your work from home business or job. Some space preparation is needed to make it efficient.

The Desk.

Whether you're working at a desk or on a table, try to avoid simply working from your couch or bed. You'll find that working at an official work space makes it easier to transition from personal time to work time. The work-life balance is especially difficult to attain if they don't take this step, since there's no physical differential between your work and home times. Get a desk or working space that has plenty of room to spread out. You might only need your laptop for work, but it's nice to have the room to spread out the latest client files, or fit the ever-useful second monitor on your desk.

Arrange for Productivity.

If your scanner and printer are at opposite ends of the house from your workstation, you waste a lot of time running back and forth between the various pieces of equipment. Put everything you need within easy reach, so you aren't breaking your working period into chunks by travelling around the house.

Get Privacy.

Working from home makes it a challenge to keep your privacy and minimize distraction. If you have an entire home office to yourself, make sure your family and friends know that when the door is closed, you are working. They need to treat it the same as you going off to work at the office. If you can't get a door, use privacy screens. Use as much wireless technology as possible so you don't have to run wires into your space, especially if you're in a small space. Internet bundles such as www.DSL.com work well with wireless routers to connect all of your devices together.

Upgrade Your Computer.

Most work-from-home businesses and jobs rely heavily on computers for at least part of the work. If you're on an antique computer that should have been retired to a museum, you're not making as much money as you should be. Your work time is not spent efficiently, and you miss out on opportunity costs when your computer is stuck loading or loses your emails. Forbes recommends the computer be placed front and center on your desk to keep you focused.

Taken from: Guest Post (article, By Alexis Little), Google (images).