Your workspace series. Pt 2, Creating a working atmosphere

Messy Messy by Addie Oh Addie

So you’ve followed part 1, and located an ideal spot to work from. You may also have a good idea of how your going to lay things out, and what it will all look like. Now’s the time though when you need to turn that space into an area where you actually want to work. Its not good spending time creating an office, and then finding it doesn’t promote a solid working ethic. Instead, if it distracts you, this could then affect your clients and eventually your profit.

How then,  do you create a space that is both welcoming, somewhere that invites you to work, and promotes a good work ethic? 

Extra Clutter

Lets start by de-junking. Get rid of everything that you don’t need, to make your space minimal in terms of the extra furniture or items you have in there. If you have a book shelf crammed full of books, that you never read, its time for it to go. Take it to a charity shop, or just rehouse it elsewhere. A clutter free workspace allows you to concentrate fully on the work at hand, instead of thinking (even sub-consciously without realizing) about the mess and extra gubbins in the room.

Besides that, as I mentioned in the previous installment, a clean & clear working area is practical. You can find everything you need quickly. You can get to the phone without knocking over cups and mountainous piles of paper. When you get a delivery, you can open it quicker as you know exactly where your scissors are, and you’ll have the space to unpack all the instructions and extras you get with it.

Consider the decor

Do think carefully about how you decorate your space. Going ultra-modern is fine, providing its usable, and not going to go out of fashion as quickly as it came in. If your a fashion follower, when that happens, your most likely going to want to re-decorate, causing more disruption. Still, its your space, and you should craft & mould it till your happy with it. If you want it to feel cosy and warm, then make it so. If you want bright pink wallpaper, by all means, its your house! Just remember, that you have to create a space that is suited to how you work, and to ensure it will not have repercussions on your productivity & income.

TV’s, Games Consoles & Do-hickies.

I remember someone once telling me about the Time Waster 2000. It was a mock phone (with a manual the size of 2 yellow pages) created to show people how gadgetry and the like can really suck up our time. And its true, they can. Granted, they have their place, but is that really in the area in which you plan to work? Personally, I like to cut the radio, TV & other assorted media out of my head, by removing them from view completely.

You may not have the benefit of been able to move stuff about so much. For example, if you have to work in your living room or elsewhere due to space issues. That’s not a problem. Just turn the device off (totally off, stand-by is bad for the environment, and makes it easier to turn on) and leave it alone. A ‘dead’ TV is less interesting than if you have re-runs of Top Gear playing over and over on Dave…

Photo by Stromberg

Use space to your advantage 

As the old saying goes, “If you have it, flaunt it”. I don’t really agree with that. I say “If you have it, use it”. If your blessed with more space, use it. Try to create & set everything out so that it suits your work style perfectly. If your an illustrator, or writer, create a space where you can work with paper. If your a photographer, define an area where you can check your photos for good focus and the perfect composition. It doesn’t have to be big, but just somewhere you can be creative, without having to move objects out of the way, or tidy up every-time you want to work there. Its all about capturing that spur of the moment inspiration, and creating an area that has only 1 primary function.

On the other hand, many of us are space challenged. I myself fall into this group. I’ve worked in my bedroom, then graduated to the dining room. After a couple years freelancing, I finally have my own semi-dedicated space which is nice. I now work in a room which I share with several guitars. Although its nice to work around such inspiring objects, the room itself is not big. It sits at about 2.5m X  2.7m. OK, so its not massively small, but I’ve had to use the space to its best. I’ve used a normal desk in here for a while, and its footprint (including the chair) is about 25ft squared. That’s a lot of room needed. It also has dead space where you need to be able to move the chair around and things. 

Consequently, I’ve had to rethink things. Early in the New year, I’m going to remodel. I spent about 20 minutes considering all my options. I weighed each one up, and imagined working in there. One of the main gripes I have at the moment, is even though I have a decent size desk, its taken up by 3 monitors, 2 keyboards & 2 mice, plus a phone, a printer and 2 mouse mats. There’s no room to write on, or design on if I want to work with a notepad. The desk houses 2 computers, one of which is the family PC. Due to the L-shaped nature of the desk (and the fact there is no room for 2 chairs), only one person can use the computer at once, hence arguments arise, and this usually ends up with me having to have a 10 minute break whilst they check their emails or chat on MSN…

Although I appreciate that break, after a while, it hit me. Why not create a full length desk? This was perfect. I could have a very long, but normal depth desk stretching across the room. This would leave me with a 3ft stretch at one end to write and design in (using paper and pens :O). When not been used as an office it would also allow the budding musician to actually play their guitars in there once more (as there’s no room currently). I could house the amp and other associated accessories under the desk, and thus totally enhance this space. There would be enough room to have 2 chairs, and thus 2 people could use the computers in that room at once. Now I can work undisturbed. The total cost to totally overhaul my workspace? About £200 ($400 ish). That’s the cost of a decent enough desk.

Whats the moral of that story? Well, I hope its to use everything to its fullest, but especially the space you have. Before you run out and start to buy stuff to furnish your office with, make sure its going to work in day-to-day working life.

The littlest of things will make a difference. If you have little floor space, use the dead space above you and fit shelves. If the room has 2 functions, consider a collapsing, or fold away desk. Little tweaks here and there will pay dividends.

Personalized office by coyotecreek

Don’t forget, it takes time!

Its impossible to get everything correct all at once. You might think ,when your prepping to move to freelancing, “I’ll just work out of my bedroom, that will work fine”. But until you’ve actually done it, its all theory. You need to live it, try it & then evaluate it. If something isn’t working, tweak it, or move onto to Plan B.

Don’t alter 2 things at once either, unless its really obvious. It can be tempting to change everything around you, because you feel either the space isnt used well, or because it just inst working. If you move everything around, and find your worse off, how do you know what is causing the problem? Whereas, if you move 1 thing at once, you firstly give yourself time to get used to it. You can also know exactly whether or not the problem has been solved. If the problem is fixed, that’s great. If its a bit better, change something else. If it doesn’t work at all, you can always go back to how things were before.

What if you don’t have any space what-so-ever? Perhaps that’s because you share a flat, or live in a student bedsit. Don’t worry. Stay tuned, as we’ll talk about external offices at some point in the future. If you have an office currently, and want to offer advice on finding / renting one, please do get in touch with me: hello@podcastforfreelancers.com - I’d love for other people to post about their experiences & offer advice on an area that I don’t currently have much experience in

And with that Part 2 is over. Stay tuned for part 3 at a later date, when we will consider an out-of-home office’s & work area’s.

Got any tips you’d like to share? How do you make the most of your space?