Congratulations on starting your own business! You might be in the middle of trying to find affordable office space, but any small business owner can tell you it’s incredibly difficult to find office space that is both affordable and suitable to your business. In fact, it’s becoming increasingly popular for small business owners to just work from home – saving on both renting office space and travel costs.
However, it can be tricky to work out of your home – especially if you don’t have much space, to begin with, so here are a few tips to make your homework for you.
Make your Home into a Dynamic Space
A huge trend in office design for 2017 & 2018 is dynamic spaces, otherwise known as rooms are fluidly designed to be functionally multipurpose. This kind of design is also great for smaller spaces like your home, as it allows you to not waste space with a large desk or take up an entire room of your house as an office, but rather use the space you do have in a way that can be changed to suit the situation. For instance, if you got a smaller desk on wheels, you could put it in a corner or a closet when you’re not using it, giving you back your living space, then just bring it out when you need to. A great way to make a dynamic space is to get a mobile divider which you can use to separate a single room into two while you’re working, then you can push it to the wall when you’re done to become shelves.
Minimalist Design
Source: Office National
One thing you don’t want is your office things piling up around your living space and encroaching on your non-work time, which can be a particular problem in a smaller living space. This can happen when you don’t invest in minimalist design for your workspace. For a minimalistic workspace, focus on the basics: laptop and mouse. If your laptop charging cable is getting in the way, try placing hooks on the legs of your desk to wrap it around so it’s out of sight. You might like to add one more thing, like a photo or a houseplant, but don’t crowd your workspace with unnecessary clutter. Minimalist design goes hand-in-hand with dynamic spaces – the less stuff you have to move, the easier it is to shift your work to a different room if needed.
Make it Natural
Finally, making your home your office can potentially mean you don’t get to go out and enjoy nature as much as you would like. There are a few simple ways you can do this – first, by adding houseplants to your workspace, big or small, can add that natural touch to your office that brightens up space. In fact, adding a terrarium as an interesting room feature is becoming more popular as greenery in the office becomes more sought after. Another cheap way to give your office that organic feel is to embrace natural light instead of artificial light. This may seem like a no-brainer, but businesses waste huge portions of their budgets each year on hidden costs like artificial lighting, rather than just opening their blinds. Working in a naturally lit room also makes you and any staff you have happier and more productive, too. Not to mention that not getting out of the house so often may cause you some problems, like a lack of Vitamin D which can cause health problems – but welcoming natural light into your office space will fix that.
