Whether you need an area to work from home daily, a few times a week, or just to pay your bills, having a comfortable and productive home office or space in your home is becoming more popular and attractive to buyers. Many sellers today highlight the home office as a bonus feature of their home.
“Even 80-year-old women have home office space and retirees too. It’s definitely valuable,” says Certified Professional Organizer, Kathi Burns, founder of addSpace to your life! If you’re considering reorganizing your home office or creating a space for one, here are five important things to do to enhance productivity while keeping your home office attractive:
1. Use an L-shaped desk. “Everybody has heard of the triangular setup for the kitchen; you want to do a similar thing for your home office,” says Burns. And with small-home trends on the rise, she recommends searching for a corner of the room and, if you have to, put two tables together to create an office space. “You need an L-shaped work area. The reason is we all have computers, printers and scanners. The day of the six-foot desk isn’t [working] anymore,” says Burns. Built-in desks are also popular features that help keep a room from looking cluttered. “If you build in an L-shape in a corner of a room, I think it increases the value because everybody now has a home office or at least a home office space, even if they don’t have a business,” says Burns.
2. Accessibility is a must. Burns recommends having your paper work at your fingertips; otherwise you could lose valuable time. “Average workers when they get up to get a ream of paper or staples are gone seven minutes. In a home-based office, they’re gone over 17 minutes,” says Burns. She says that’s because there are many more distractions such as laundry, household errands, kids, etc. Burns adds, “You just want to guard your energy and not have to leave your workspace. So, everything within hands’ reach is really the most important thing of all.”
3. Temporary Dining-room conversion. “A lot of people are converting their dining rooms into home-offices because, quite honestly, people don’t entertain like they used to,” says Burns. She says homeowners don’t have to spend a lot of money to do this and they also don’t have to make it permanent. “I’ll tell a lot of my clients to go to home improvement stores and buy a kitchen counter top,” says Burns. You can have it cut to fit your office area and then have it placed on two file cabinets at each end with an L bracket in the middle for support. “It doesn’t cost that much money and it looks really custom-designed,” says Burns.
4. Keep 60 percent of your desk open and clear for business. Burns says this gives you room to get what you need to do completed each day. When your desk is buried in paper, frustration and anxiety creep in, things get lost or overlooked. She recommends using an “action system” which basically keeps the papers vertical on your desk, right in front of your face.” The papers are divided into categories such as: bills to pay, current projects, data entry (for writing in paper system or entering into computer), upcoming events, reading/need to review materials, coupons/offers, and outbox/errands.
5. Have an effective paper-traffic system in place. Having a system that helps you file, eliminate unnecessary papers, and attend to important papers is vital to keeping your desk clear. Investing in system that will help you purge papers can be a huge timesaver. It also wards off the dreaded “gotta-clean-the-file-cabinet” chore that so many of us hate. Having a home-office can save you time and money, but, ultimately, it only if it helps you get things done. It’s worth taking an afternoon to reorganize to enhance your productivity. And don’t forget to talk to your tax accountant about possible tax deductions.
Author: Phoebe Chongchua
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