Designing your home office space is fraught with many pitfalls. It’s easy to make extra work for yourself. Below are three of the top challenges that many people have encountered. I hope that the experiences listed below will help you.
WARNING: These ideas are only for you if you have a clearly defined business path. You don’t want to join the ranks of “cloudy thinkers” and end up relocating their offices a couple of times looking for the right place. What a waste of energy and time? (And believe me — I’ve wasted the time and energy a few times myself, and so have a few others as you’ll see below.)
Example #1 — Think and then rethink your first idea
Here’s one example of why choosing the very first place that comes to mind may not be in your best interest.
Take the example of G.E. He decided to start a stained-glass factory from his home. He picked his den as his place of business. He ended up in a RV parked beside his house.
Why?
Because he hadn’t taken into account how interested his young children would be in handling his tools and the pretty glass pieces.
Example #2 — How about that spare bedroom?
Well, depending on the location, this could be a great (or horrible) place to put your office. I read an example of a woman who was an empty-nester who decided to become buiild her business as a technical writer.
Since she had a spare bedroom she converted that into her office. Sound like a no-brainer, right?
The problem that she encountered was that her husband would constantly interrupt her, despite her requests to be left alone until lunch. She got so frustrated that she planned on moving her office to a rental location!
After discussing the matter with her husband she realized that the spare bedroom that she picked (right at the top of the stairs) was a magnet for her husband. He literally walked by her everytime he had to get something from upstairs and couldn’t resist chatting with her.
The solution? She switched bedrooms. She took one of the rooms that was out of his walking pattern. So when her husband took his daily walks upstairs, he didn’t see her. Out of sight was truly out of mind for him. Her production increased as her stress level decreased.
