26 Jul 09 How to Build a Home Office

In the last article, we talked about why a freelancer need to have a home office, and I guess, I succeeded in building case in favor of a small home office. Hence, in this article, we will see what all we need to have in our no-frills small home office to help us work efficiently. Before we begin with buying stuffs for our home office, let us first unclutter the space where we want to create our imagination-pod.

Get a lonely unused corner

The first step in establishing a functional home office is to leave your bedroom, and search for an unused space, not necessarily corner, to setup your home office. By shifting your works to one designated area, you will free up your personal space and time, and the home office will send a signal to your unconscious mind that as soon as you start moving towards that special area, your body should get prepared for work.

By separating your work place from your bedroom, you can also control the inflow of distracting stimuli to your work space. I would suggest you to keep the decoration of your home office to painting the wall with a darker shade of your favorite color, and having a clock or clocks, depending upon the geographical locations of your clients.

The agenda of this article is not to tell the rich kids about what all fancy stuffs they should keep in their home offices, but the goal of this article is to provide a list of basic things that you must have in your home office.

Must-have Home Office Tools

Well, if you are building your home office to impress your friend, family and relative then go for the latest hi-tech gadgets, but if your intention is to do some real work in there then invest your hard-earned money in buying the tools that you cannot do without. The following list includes the things you should keep in your home office:

Personal computer, or a laptop
All-in-one printer, fax, copier and scanner
At least a landline or a cell phone
Stapler, pen, pencil, blank sheets, glue, adhesive, tape, sharpener, eraser, scale and other stationary.
A portable Hard disk for data backup
A coffee-mug holder to save your desk from coffee spills
Visiting card holder
Blank Media
Bulletin Board to affix to-do list
Ideation board
Stickies, and
Dictionary

Can you come up with more must-have office tools? Well, help me out in making this list exhaustive.

Tags: Adhesive Tape, Blank Sheets, Building Case, Fancy Stuffs, Favorite Color, Friend Family, Geographical Locations, Hard Earned Money, Hi Tech Gadgets, Inflow, Must Have Home Office, Office Tools, Painting The Wall, Pen Pencil, Rich Kids, Scal, Space And Time, Unconscious Mind, Unused Space, Work Space

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25 Jul 09 Why to Build a Home Office

There was a time when freelancing was not as easy as it is now, and the amount of work available for freelancers were also not much in comparison to the amount of works available today. The Internet played the role of a catalyst, and everything (read most of the tings) that could be digitalized are digitalized now. These two things played very important roles in the information and crowd sourcing revolution.

The army for freelance professionals or freelance entrepreneurs is growing, and with it is emerging the issues related to freelancing. One very important issue is of having a fixed time and place to work in. Most of the people started freelancing in order to use their talent or skills to get out of 9-5 rat race, and indeed they have succeeded in doing so. They have broken the time-shackle and with it they have broken the space-shackle as well. Now, they do not have a fix place to work in. Is it good? Not necessarily!

Not having a fix time and place to work means, you can work anywhere and anytime, but in reality it turns out to mean not working at anyplace and anytime. In the absence of one designated place to work in, we end up working nowhere. That is not our fault that is how we are wired to behave.

In order to be more efficient or to work properly, we need to have a proper place to sit and work. If you have a designated place and time to sit and work then long before you take your first step towards that designated place, your unconscious mind starts preparing your body for the task. This priming doesn’t happen in the absence of a designated place and time to work in.

As you have left your day job, you must not have any office to go to. In this situation, you need to make a small home office in any corner of your house where you can go to work. Your office is not supposed to host a big cabin like the one your boss had in your office, you just need a small space where you can put everything that you need to do your work.

What do you think, is a small home office is a must for every freelancer? Use the comment box to share your view on this.

Tags: Absence Of One, Army, Big Cabin, Boss, Catalyst, Crowd, Day Job, Freelance Professionals, Place And Time, Priming, Rat Race, Shackle, Sit, Small Home Office, Time And Place, Tings, Unconscious Mind

Filed in Career Management with 0 Comments

26 Jul 09 How to Build a Home Office

Get a lonely unused corner

Must-have Home Office Tools

25 Jul 09 Why to Build a Home Office

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