Set up your home office: Tips for working from home

Before you start furnishing your study, you need to determine a few key data in advance. These will then help you to adapt your office to your individual spatial circumstances and set it up optimally. 

One of the most important questions is how long it will last: Will your home office be a transitional solution or should it be long-term? Will you be in your home office two days a week or five? Depending on the answers you have to these questions, this should also be taken into account in the design of your workroom. An investment in expensive furniture is not worthwhile if you are going back to the office after six months anyway. The question of duration is probably the most important, as all further steps are based on this. 

As soon as you know how long you will be working from home, you can start setting up a permanent workplace. Here, of course, you are bound by your spatial circumstances. A separate study that you can close behind you and that is used exclusively for work would be ideal. However, many people do not have the opportunity to use an entire room as a study and this is not necessarily a problem. Nevertheless, a fixed workspace is an advantage as it gives you a designated area in your home that you associate with your work. 

There are numerous space-saving ways to make working from home as easy as possible. You can use minimalist desk corners or a secretary for your home office. The spatial separation can also be achieved without great effort using curtains or a mobile room divider. The more often and longer you work from home, the more sensible it would be to have a fixed workstation that you don't have to set up and take down every time. But that is also possible. You can think of the set-up and dismantling as the ritual walk to work, which marks the beginning and end of the working day for you every day. 

Light plays a central role in productivity and concentration. Natural light is important in order to be able to concentrate. For this reason, it is advisable to place your desk near a window. However, be careful not to look directly at the window or have it in view. The former will put extreme strain on your eyes in the long term. The latter would make it more difficult to look at the screen, as the daylight would otherwise glare into it. Ideally, set up your desk at a right angle to the window. 

As you may have already noticed when determining your workplace, there is often not enough space available to set up your own office as desired. This problem also extends to the furnishing of your home office. However, you don't necessarily have to make sacrifices in terms of style and comfort. Nowadays, ergonomic chairs are no longer the unwieldy giants they used to be. There are now also aesthetically pleasing ergonomic chairs that can be harmoniously integrated into the style of your own home. 

Working from home often leads to getting distracted. It's much quicker to reach for your cell phone or the fridge in between. You probably wouldn't do that in the office. In such cases, it is advisable to remove all distractions out of reach. This also includes noise and interruptions by others. Inform people who live in your household about your working hours and that you need to remain undisturbed during this time. The routine of fixed working hours not only helps those around you not to disturb you, but also helps you to keep a fixed division between work and leisure time.

Order is also an important part of avoiding distraction. Some decoration or office supplies are helpful and can of course also get you into the right work mode. However, too much clutter makes it difficult to concentrate. 

The last and probably most important point on the list concerns the technical equipment of your home office. Especially if you need to hold a lot of video conferences to keep in touch with your colleagues and customers from home, the right technology is essential. Above all, this includes a working internet connection, a good display and excellent audio- and Camera systems. 

Nothing is as disruptive at work as a poor connection to your conversation partner. Whether it's due to a faltering internet connection or poor camera or audio quality. If video conferencing is one of your regular tasks, it must also be possible to do this from home without any problems. We are happy to help companies whose employees are to work entirely or temporarily from home with the necessary preparations for this. 

As a company with years of experience in the fields of conference and media technology, we at ComPeri can provide you with optimal advice and support you in the planning and installation of home office workstations. Do you have questions about our service or the technology required for working from home? We look forward to hearing from you contact us to discuss your personal concerns.