How to Set Up Your Home Office

Making space for your work at home endeavours can vary from having no space to renting offsite space – and everything in between! Here are some tips on how to set up your home office.

Your home office has to fit your personal working style and you may need to be working for yourself for some time before you really know what you prefer.

Maybe you need nothing more than a laptop and connection to the Internet. You might be perfectly happy in your favorite recliner, on the couch, or even in bed with your laptop to work from.

Do you need to use your office to meet clients? This can be an important factor to consider as well.

Some people rent out a space away from their home to work in. This can require a substantial investment of money in the beginning, but if you feel you need the separation from home, then it can be a real help to your productivity.

Others like to get away and work in a café, fueled by caffeine and the shared buzz of others working and chatting alongside them.

More and more urban areas are now offering shared office space. My own daughter takes advantage of this type of arrangement, and finds the networking opportunities there to be very useful and the interactivity in her shared space to be motivating and inspiring.

Many people assign a certain room of their homes to be office space. It doesn’t even have to be an entire room – I once modified a bedroom closet to be an office. You’ll need to determine what you need in the way of space, and your needs might change as your business grows.

Your home office has to fit your personal working style.

Do you have an entire desk to work at? Or is a laptop holder plenty for you? Are you working with a normal sized desktop PC? You can get very small desks that don’t take up much room.

Some people like to have the following elements for their home office:

• A computer (or even multiple computers)
• A web cam for making videos
• Speakers
• Portable video device with tripod if necessary
• Back up storage hard drive (don’t lose your hard work!)
• File storage for papers
• Bookshelf for reference and inspirational books
• Phone

Some things you want to do are make sure you’re not allowing distractions to keep you from being productive. Having the TV on or listening to music might not affect you – or you could get so engrossed in watching or listening that you neglect your own business. Only you can make that call.

If you are very blessed, you can have a dedicated room to set up your home office and be able to work without the distraction of being in the middle of the activity of the household.

The beautiful room in the photo is my own home office. I count myself very blessed indeed to have such a lovely workspace.

In case you're curious, I started working online in 1997 - in the dinosaur days of the internet. My purpose here at HomeFreeMedia is to help YOU build the business of your dreams by developing and recommending top quality products and tools. This will also result in profit and affiliate commissions for me, so we both win!
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