Although it may still be surprising, more and more of us work or do some work from time to time from our home. In other words, it shouldn't surprise us if one of these days we have to have our home office. This post is for all those who want to do just that, set up an office from scratch in which to do some work from home or, another option, to reform the office in which you are already working to be more productive or work more comfortable.
What you will find in this post are not items that you can buy, but tips to help you decide what is best for you or what would be best for that office where you will spend most of your time, such as the type of chair you should use or what lamp is the one that interests you the most.
How to choose the best office chair
In my opinion, the most important thing in any office is the seat where we will be sitting for hours. If you think any chair is enough, I think it's because you haven't spent hours sitting down doing the same job yet. The first thing we have to take into account is: What work are we going to do on that chair?
Among the different office jobs that go through my mind right now, I would say that there are two types of jobs, three at the most: the job we are in. all the time writing, like that of a professional blogger who does not also dedicate himself to something else, the jobs in which we spend the most of the time using the mouse or touchpad and the jobs in which we do the two previous things.
I mention the above because, for example, if we are going to spend most of the time writing, I think it is not worth buying a chair with armrest, or at least that's what I think because personally I don't see them necessary; I already rest my arms on the table and the armrests would bother me. On the other hand, if what we do with the computer depends more on a mouse, I think we can sit in different ways, so it might not be such a bad idea if our office chair had armrests.
Since we have started talking about comfort, another thing we can take into account is the back of the chair. In this sense, it is important that we make sure that this chair allows us have a straight back, so that it does not suffer when we spend several hours in front of the computer. Depending on the type of work we are going to do, we also have to look at its headrest and whether the backrest is reclining or not. Personally, I prefer that the backrest is straight, but surely there are people and jobs that prefer to work with the back a little leaning back.
Finally, depending on the office that we believe in, it will also be more or less important than the chair have wheels. If we work with a small table, it is not worth spending our time and money looking for a chair with wheels, but things already change if we work at a large table or more than one table, since if we choose a chair with wheels we can, for example, move to a shelf and return to our workstation without having to get up from our chair.
How should my office table be?
Well. Now that we have chosen the chair in which we will spend most of our working day sitting, I think the next thing we will have to do is choose the table of our office, although I am aware that many would do it just the other way around.
As when choosing our chair, the first thing we have to do is assess what kind of work do we have to do. It is not the same to spend the day doing work on the web than to transfer information that we have written on paper to a computer. In the first case, any table, no matter how small, may be sufficient, but in the second we will need space for paper and, probably, some drawers where to put office supplies such as pens, Tipp-Ex, paper clips, post-it, etc. .
What I think is interesting regardless of the type of work we do in the 21st century is that the table has holes through which we can pass, at least, the cables of a desktop computer. These holes allow us to pass the cables through holes specially designed for this, which, on the other hand, will serve to keep them well organized.
Holes for cables apart, the first thing we will have to be clear about when choosing an office table is which size We need it. In my opinion, from what comes to mind right now, we only have to keep one thing in mind: do we have to perform some kind of manual manipulation? If the answer is no, we can use practically any table, but it is not worth spending a lot of money on a large table that we will not use.
It is if we are going to do any kind of manual manipulation when we have to consider buying a table with a larger surface. Depending on the handling, a medium-sized desk table will suffice or we will need a whole desk.
Finally, what we also have to take into account is whether we want the table with or without drawers. If the work that we are going to do is via the web and we are not going to carry out any type of manipulation, I would recommend that it have at least one drawer in which we can put the mobile phone and some personal items. But it is not the same if we are going to work with many documents, in which case it may be a good idea that one of the drawers is one of the large ones that will allow us to put pages vertically to order them in alphabetical order. Although this brings us to the shelves.
Do we need shelving?
If we work with documents, something that practically any advisor can do, I think it is worth getting involved some bookshelf. There are many types of them, from those that are a wooden furniture to those that we assemble with 4 legs and the shelves screwed on them.
Logically, the more documents we have to save, the larger the shelf we need. Thinking about this can make us overwhelmed, unless we look at it in perspective: needing many shelves and that our office is too small will be the signal to make the leap to another office or, what is the same, our business grow up.
Lighting design
Like chairs and tables, something that at first seems not very important is the lighting. But if we think that these kinds of things are not important, we should not have the slightest doubt that we will find out how wrong we were after several years have passed.
Without good lighting, we will strain our eyes more than necessary and that will result in medium / long term vision problems. Taking this into account, I think we can talk about two different types of lighting: normal and necessary if we have to look at the details.
Normal lighting will be what we will use in practically any work we do with a computer, since it will have a backlight. Of course, better if we put one foil to protect our sight right in front of the screen.
If what we are going to do at our desk is a job in which we have to pay attention to what we do, then it is worth using a flexo that illuminates well. The example that comes to mind at this point are graphic designers or those who do any type of drawing, who usually use a fairly large flexo that, if possible, uses a special bulb, usually blue, that emits a more light. natural than most conventional bulbs.
What if our office is also where we negotiate with clients?
Here things get a bit complicated. So far we have spoken of our office as that room where we carry out our work as such, but it is possible that this office is also a office where we will receive and sell our product to our customers.
If this is the case, I think it is best to ignore practically nothing of what has been explained so far in this post and focus on creating a room that makes a good impression. Logically, each person will have a way of seeing things but, for example, we cannot use a small table if part of our job is to show samples to our clients. In this case, it is best to buy a medium-sized table with a good image, not to have the table full of work and that the rest of the decoration is to match.
And where do I get all this?
There may be many stores where we will find all kinds of products, but the best way not to get distracted is to go to one specialized storeas living, where we will find office furniture that will allow us to furnish from our own work area in our room to an office in which to sell our best projects.
Do you already know how to create an office in your own home?