The Joy of Working From Home:

Reworking the Way We Work:
The Art of Making a Life
While Making a Living. (SM)

by Jeff Berner

© 1996, Jeff Berner.
All rights reserved.

Contact the Author


Organizing Your New Space for Fun and Profit

Many people who set up a home office are so anxious to get started that they plunk down their equipment, notebooks, and card files on the biggest surface they can find-often the dining room table. Whatever you do, don't start working there. Almost everyone who does discovers that they never get their table back for dining! On the other hand, you may eventually find yourself using the dining table or spreading out in the living room once in a while for a change of scene.

Keep in mind that opening up a new physical space in which to work is also creating a new psychological space where you will be living and doing what you do best.







An Early Home Office

 Thomas Jefferson, America's third president (1801-1809), was way ahead of his time when he created his estate at Monticello. This great American Renaissance man designed an integrated office-bedroom and anticipated many features that have since become standard requirements in today's home offices, including a swivel chair and foot rest, task lighting in the form of candles on the arms of the chair, a "data base" on a revolving bookstand that allowed him to have four books open at once, and a pantograph, the personal copying machine of the eighteenth century.

You will need to create a separate environment where you go to work, a zone where you won't be interrupted by friends or family-especially if there are children in the household. The minimum space you'll need for a desk, chair, and file cabinet is six feet by eight feet.

The most important item of home office equipment-whether you live in an apartment or a palace-is a door that closes! If you live in a studio apartment, you can partition off a corner of the main room with a Japanese-style shoji screen so when your work is done, you can at least visually close your office. If you don't physically enclose your space, your work will be staring at you around the clock-while you eat, watch television, visit with family and friends, and try to sleep.

Another option is to purchase office furniture that is designed to close up to hide everything. One furniture maker, Basset, builds an armoire with a fold-down desk and interior space for a computer, monitor, printer, and keyboard tray. Techline, dak, and Dimensions, among others, offer modular, multifunction furniture that allows you to change the configuration at will.



Six Keys to a Happy Space

  1. Cluster your activities, but give yourself reason to move around
  2. Have adequate counter space and storage
  3. Give yourself a window
  4. Create good lighting and air
  5. Have carpet for friendly acoustics
  6. Decorate to enjoy the many hours you will live in your office




If possible, use a separate room for your office that will be relatively safe from interruptions. Liberate a spare bedroom, den, or garage space. The more removed it is from the activity center where family and friends are, the better. If you choose a garage, make sure it is comfortable, particularly in extremes of weather. But don't be tempted to take over the basement or attic; you don't want to spend your new life in a dungeon. Remember that you are liberating yourself, not digging in.

If you have the space and budget, you can remodel your home or build an addition designed by an architect with some experience in home offices. It can be an exciting creative challenge, but elaborate measures aren't necessary for creating a successful personal office.

My own office is rather compact. I deliberately set it up so that I am required to get out of my chair to get to the fax machine and laser printer. I have to stretch to reach my scissors and must stand to grab other supplies. This setup keeps me active while I'm working with my mind.

Good space use has much more to do with how you arrange things than with the absolute size of your space. If an astronaut can perform well in a tiny but fiercely efficient area, surely you will be able to manage in your available space! If you design your office so your most frequent activities are all within reach, either in a corner (preferably with a window) or around an L- or U-shaped desk, you can use a smaller space more efficiently. Consider how a kitchen is set up for efficient use of space: the close proximity of sink, stove, and refrigerator saves time and energy.



Make It Your Space

Once you have chosen your sanctuary zone, try not to imitate the cold, efficient look of workaday offices. Create a comfortable atmosphere, which might include posters and other art that is often forbidden in corporate office settings.

An aquarium is a relaxing addition, and potted plants, miniature trees, and other greenery will keep you in touch with nature and help clear the air of environmental pollutants. Taking care of a few plants and fish will also provide pleasant and productive breaks for you during your workday or work night. If you don't have a green thumb, keep cut flowers on your desk. A clump of wildflowers will bring as much eye joy to your office as a florist's bouquet.

Plants require good lighting, and so do you. Try to mix daylight with full-spectrum ambient lights for the overall space, and use small task lights for reading and by the phone. Avoid fluorescent lights, high-frequency strobes that often cause eyestrain and headaches.

Fresh air is as important as good light. While modern offices are built with sealed windows and recirculate the air inside, you can set up your personal office with fresh air from the outside if you live in a relatively unpolluted community. You may want to install an air conditioner or ceiling fan. Don't skimp when it comes to your comfort and health.

Try to situate your desk with a window on one side or the other, rather than in back or in front of you. If you are using a computer, this positioning is essential to avoid screen reflection and glare. Even without a computer, situating yourself near a window offers visual relief while you are sitting at your desk. If you have no view, hang landscape paintings or photographic posters that let your mind out of the room occasionally.

Add enough shades, drapes, or curtains to maintain your privacy and security. Carpets or rugs will make walking and standing more comfortable and will baffle the sound of computers, fax machines, phones, and footsteps. Avoid carpets containing synthetics and petrochemicals, which generate static electricity as you walk and give off chemical exhausts that can trigger allergies for years.

Decorate to please your personal taste, making your space as inviting for you as for visitors. By creating a delightful place to spend your eight or more hours a day, self-discipline will be much easier and you'll find yourself looking forward to that ten-second commute.

Once you have the space, organize your personal office in a way that strikes the balance between military orderliness and absolute chaos that suits your personal working style. Good chefs cluster their tools, and they clean as they go. By the time they sit down to enjoy the results of their efforts, the kitchen is tidy. Albert Einstein, on the other hand, inhabited an especially messy office at Princeton University. When a journalist visited him and asked how the father of modern atomic physics could work in such chaos, he replied, "It's meaningful chaos." Fortunately, Einstein had genius on his side-and he didn't have to entertain potential clients in his office.

There is hardly an office on earth, from an architect's office to a novelist's cottage, that has enough flat work surface. Like closet space, you never have enough; when you add more, it fills up almost before the paint dries. If you can, set up more desktop and counter area than you think you'll ever need. I guarantee you'll use it.

Contrary to the ads, there is no such thing as a paperless office, so you'll need at least one four-drawer file cabinet. The best cabinets have full suspension arms that support the length of each drawer and hang each file on side rails; with other types, you'll wind up with files that slouch in the drawer and are difficult to separate and find. Filed items can easily fall victim to the file-and-forget syndrome, so riffle through them regularly.

If your documents are sensitive, such as medical claims to be processed for payment, be sure your file drawers can be locked to avoid the liability that could ensue if the records fell into the wrong hands. A fireproof file cabinet might provide extra peace of mind for other more sensitive documents. You might also consider purchasing a fire-proof safe that can't be lugged away and will withstand an hour-long fire. A good place to install one is behind a false wall or bookcase, or embedded in cement in an out-of-the-way part of your garage floor. You may want to rent a safe-deposit box in your local bank for safeguarding sensitive business data when you travel out of town. It's also a good place to store computer disks, because the heat from an hour-long house fire would melt them even in a fire-proof safe. I always leave home with a small floppy disk of my most important materials in my jacket pocket. They are extremely valuable because of all the time and toil that went into their creation.

Wall-mounted plastic or wooden folder holders are great for keeping current projects, invoices, letters, and news clippings within view and reach without taking up valuable desk or counter space. You only have to look up from your work to be reminded of your most active projects.

Neat freaks and lovers of relative chaos agree that a terrific way to prevent important things from disappearing under piles of other stuff is to buy inexpensive plastic briefcases in a variety of colors and put everything pertaining to a single project in its own case. You can go right to the blue briefcase to file incoming materials and to the gray case to grab the project for those manufacturers in Minneapolis. These cases usually cost less than lunch and can save you many hours.

Small bookcases are useful for storing envelopes and stationery, printer paper, tape, glue, and other items you want within reach. This way they are out of the way but still in view. Your incoming mail, new magazines, and current newspapers should be left out in the open to keep them from sinking to the bottom of your personal tar pit.

Depending on what type of business you have, you may want some general storage space for oversize shipping envelopes, blueprints, product samples, copier toner, phone books, and other stuff that should be kept close at hand but out of the way. A closet is often the best solution. It's essential to avoid wading through a clutter every time you want to refer to an item, make a knowledgeable phone call, or fax a document.

Also, consider the value of an exercise corner or even an entire room, or a spa or hot tub for relief from marathon sessions. Having enough entertainment in your home-especially a good sound system-can help you resist going out on overly long breaks.

You'll want to purchase and store adequate supplies, too. Managing your supply of little items can be as vital to getting the big things out the door as managing your time is. Feeding your fax, printer, copier, and other business-support equipment is what keeps you fed. If you run out of fax paper just as a contract is coming in from Colorado Springs, the delay will make you look unprofessional and could cost you important business. So stock up on manila and shipping envelopes, presentation binders, filing and organizing supplies, report covers, tape, staples, and fax paper. Try to stay one unit ahead on toner cartridges for your laser printer and copier machine and about six units ahead on ribbons for your dot-matrix printer and typewriter. You don't have to buy enough supplies to last until your grandchildren are too old to play shuffleboard, but you should buy them in quantities large enough to minimize surprises. It's especially important if you live a half-hour drive from the nearest supplier, as I do. Having five thousand more staples than you think you'll ever use is far better than having just one too few!



Evaluate Your Space

  1. Once you are up and running for a few weeks, reassess how well you are using your space.

  2. Do you still have enough surface area for folders, papers, invoices, letters, and current projects?

  3. Are your wall-mounted folder holders being used well, or are you just stashing magazines in them?

  4. Are you letting things pile up? (Of course you are. Everyone does. But are you constantly hunting for items and papers you need?)

  5. Can you get to the fax machine easily, or do you have to close the lower file cabinet drawer before you can reach that incoming message without bruising your shin?




Take Time to Organize

The National Association of Professional Organizers has declared every January tenth as National Clean Off Your Desk Day. According to the association, people with messy desk habits can expect to take three months to establish a new behavior pattern.

Even if you are doing quite well, give yourself a space-use upgrade every now and then by taking a morning or a day to analyze and reorganize your productivity center. In an extreme case, move everything out, and then move back in again for a fresh start.



Resources

These books can guide you in creating a healthful home office environment. After all, you don't want to exchange the toxic corporate world for something equally unhealthful inside your home.


Healing Environments: Your Guide to Indoor Well-Being, by Carol Venolia (Celestial Arts, 1988), includes chapters on light, color, sound and noise, indoor air quality, the thermal environment, plants and gardens, and other subjects.

Office Work Can Be Dangerous to Your Health, by Jeanne Stellman, Ph.D., and Mary Sue Henifin, M.P.H. (Pantheon Books, 1983), covers the effects of lighting, video display terminals, photocopiers, and other common office machines, plus a wide range of other things to consider for maximum health while working.

The Non-Toxic Home, by Debra Lynn Dadd (Tarcher/St. Martin's Press, 1986), covers tap water, pesticides, plastics, furnishings and appliances, and toxic house plants.

Ion and Light Company is a complete supplier of environmentally friendly air and water purifying products, plus full-spectrum light bulbs. Ion and Light Company, 2263-1/2 Sacramento Street, San Francisco, CA 94115. (415) 346-6205.

If your car is your office, Modular Trunk Products sells CAR-GO-FILE, an automobile trunk organizing system for books, catalogs, samples, or tools. For a brochure, write MTP, P.O. Box 973, Newark, CA 94560, or call (800) 426-3453.




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    • © 1996, Jeff Berner. All rights reserved.