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Moving from an office job to working from home can be a positive career shift. Your time is your own. You’re the master of your own space, and you can take a break to make lunch more or less whenever you want. You don’t even have to get out of your pajamas if you don’t want to (although you probably should).
The possibilities for working from home are virtually limitless. You could work on acquiring and renting out property for a passive income, with the help of a service such as roofstock real estate. You could provide freelance web design services from your home, or you could be a full-time copywriter working remotely, among other things.
To be successful while working from home, you need the right home office setup. Here are some tips for achieving the perfect home office arrangement.
Your home office should be for your work only
Your home office doesn’t actually need to be an entire office, but it really should be somewhere for you to work and nothing else. This immediately excludes, for example, your bed or your sofa as options for your workstation.
There are many good reasons for keeping your “home office” a space carefully delineated for work. For one thing, you begin to condition yourself psychologically to associate the space with work. This makes it much easier to actually do your work when sitting down at your workstation.
For another thing, keeping a clearly marked working space helps you to manage work-life balance. You don’t associate your bed or dining table with work. This will help you avoid getting pangs of anxiety or the urge to double check on work-related stuff while relaxing around your home.
Your home office should be tidy and organized
A tidy environment seems to contribute significantly to a tidy mind as many different business and productivity gurus have noted over time. It goes without saying that your business is one area of your life where simplicity, organization and attention to detail are particularly important.
A tidy workstation also has more tangible, physical, and psychological benefits. It should be self-explanatory why being able to find what you’re looking for, when you need it, is great for productivity.
Your home office should have a clear “do not disturb” policy
If you were working in a conventional office cubicle, in a conventional office building, it’s unlikely that your friends or family would stop by to interrupt you in the middle of your work day to show you funny cat videos.
When working from home, this is, unfortunately, not so uncommon.
Make sure that anyone you share your home with knows not to disturb you when you’re at your workstation. Make it a hard and fast rule. You can even consider wearing headphones and playing ambient music to get in the zone.
Use your breaks to socialize — just as you would in a conventional workplace.
