Setting up your own business, and in need of an efficient personal space to base yourself for working into the foreseeable future? Perhaps you conduct some freelance work on the side, and are after a place to retreat to in order to get your head down and concentrate? Take a look at look at this guide, showing some great tips on how to build a best personal workspace in 2019.
Getting the right equipment
First things first, to make sure you’re getting work done quickly and efficiently, you need to make sure that you’ve got the right tools. Perhaps it’s true that the best ideas can come from your head and only need a pen and paper. However, without the right supplies, you won’t be able to achieve the sort of workflow that you might’ve been able to in the traditional workplace. Get yourself a nice desk, a comfortable office chair that you can spend time in without getting back pain, and a stable internet connection. Perhaps purchasing a small printer if you need to waste trees to get things done.
A huge percentage of jobs use computers, and presumably, it will be the tool you do the majority of your work on it if working out of an office environment, and so you shouldn’t skimp on investing in a good PC that will last. Computers that utilize solid-state hard drives are good ones to look at, as they can typically load files a lot quicker and have faster boot-up times. Deciding to build your own unit gives you the freedom to build to your specific desires and is typically cheaper, but can be a pain if you don’t know how to put it all together.
Out on the go a lot, and want to be able to work during a commute, etc.? Sometimes it can be a pain trying to navigate email threads and workloads through your phone screen, and so consider investing in a portable laptop that you can take in and out of your office environment. Providing you buy a machine that is powerful enough to handle your workload, this can be the perfect best-of-both-worlds scenario, as you can almost always hook up laptops and notebooks to larger monitor screens when in the office and with mice and keyboards, emulating the desktop experience.
Studio Inspiration: Need to build a studio space to record professional-grade audio and video, perhaps for marketing materials, music production, or even podcasting as part of a blog? Try and find a room or space to work in that will have little-to-no external noise pollution. Big, empty box rooms are typically a no-go, as they have no furniture inside them to absorb the echoing sound. To better isolate the noise, many studios have sound isolating foam or similar wall setups, paired up with a good quality microphone and some accompanying recording software.
Productivity – Programs and software
Another important factor to consider is the programs and software that you might need to get your work done, depending on the type of work that you do. The computer itself is obviously imperative for the vast majority of work in the modern-day, but if you haven’t got the right stuff installed, it’s a pointless investment. Think about some of the software packages that you’ve used in the past, and go from there.
Cloud storage is a great new way of backing up your work files. Not only will this method give you peace of mind and added security should anything go wrong, but it also helps to improve productivity by allowing you to easily share and collaborate on projects by merely sharing a link, and by downloading the smartphone app you can even access your work remotely from outside the office. Many different companies have their own cloud storage solutions, so it’s completely dependent on the service you might already be using, or your personal preference. Popular choices include iCloud, Dropbox and OneDrive.
For small businesses, handling the mundane admin tasks behind the scenes can also be a real chore, especially when you want to just get down to tackling the work that you’re passionate about. Luckily, apps and software are there to help with this too, and so take advantage of them when you can if you think they might be useful. Apps such as QuickBooks can help you behind the scenes if you need them to, keeping track of receipts and handling invoices, etc.
Modern design
When creating your perfect office environment, the design is pretty crucial. After all, this is going to be a space that you’ll be spending a lot of time in working away, and so you want it to be warm and inviting, as far away from the drab and dreary office stereotype as possible.
If working with a confined amount of space, you could take a minimalist approach to your design, maximizing floor space and removing the unnecessary clutter. Research has shown that this approach has proven to help with concentration, and in city-center apartment buildings from property investment companies such as RW Invest, it’s the most popular layout among young professionals and entrepreneurs that work in different destinations.
Top-Tip: Most people follow a guide such as this one or look to others for inspiration when building their workspace, which is a great idea to get started, but it’s also important that you think about what makes you happy and productive. Think about the conditions that allow you to be the most productive version of yourself, and try to recreate them in your office space.
Achieving the right vibe
As mentioned above, isolating noise is important if working on audio or video content and trying to create a studio room, but it is also essential to take this into account for your traditional office. When working from home, it can be easy to fall prey to many of the numerous distractions dotted around the house, and so you should do your best to allocate a set room to work in and stick to it. Alongside creating a schedule of times you’re going to work; this is a great way of not getting your work/life balance conflated and off-kilter.
Top-Tip: Social media and mobile phones, in general, are a big distraction, and while they are needed at times to help us with work, and keep us in contact with collaborators, etc., they can also be a productivity killer. Put your phone to one side or leave it in a different room when working, and give yourself the chance to focus on one thing rather than trying to multi-task.
