September 20, 2005 at 11:19:21 p.m.
Not too many years ago having your office in the home was born out of necessity or luxury. Today home offices have sprouted up like wildflowers on a spring meadow. But after the excitement of planning an office and seeing your dreams of a private and personal space take shape you begin to discover some of the hidden bugs that come with this decision. These hidden angsts are the things that will begin to undermine your efficiency and, in some cases, cause you enough disenchantment as to make you wonder why you made this change in the first place. So, here’s your checklist. If you have thought about a home office but have yet to take the leap, check these items carefully. If you already are operating from a home office, you might need to make some adjustments.
VIEW
It doesn’t make any difference if the home office is a full room or a converted closet, it needs to be put out of sight at the end of the day. If it’s a room then make sure it has a door that can be closed; or if a closet, put up drapes or folding blinds. The reason for this is that you don’t want to find yourself working where you live or living where you work. No matter how much you love your job there will come a time when you need to make it disappear. If it is always in range of your sight (even just passing by) it will begin to take over your personal lifestyle.
ADDRESS
I can’t count the number of times people have smugly mentioned the convenience of going to their office in their pajamas. This may seem appealing in the beginning but your work efficiency will drop dramatically if this becomes a habit. Whether you wish to believe it or not, we have a need to dress for the occasion. Wearing tattered blue jeans to a black tie affair makes you feel out of place. Well, wearing pj’s to the office is also making you feel out of place even if you don’t think so. There’s a huge difference between the activity of the bedroom and that of an office, and not dressing for the occasion will begin to manifest as sloppy work and lowered mental efficiency. This doesn’t mean that you have to put on suit and tie, or blouse and skirt. But it does mean that dressing for the job will insure that your thought processes will accept the creative challenge of your work in the manner necessary to see that the requirements are successfully manifested.
AFTER HOURS
I have always heard the argument that the home office makes for more output because you can always get to it regardless of the time of day. This concept has some merit….just some! Getting into the habit of working at all hours will take an enormous toll on your mental and physical health, not to say the damage that it will cause to your private lifestyle. It doesn’t matter if you determine to work four hours a day or fifteen hours a day, there should be a cut-off time when you quit and except in instances of absolute emergency that time should be maintained. When you have the urge to go in the office and “clear up a few things,” consider whether you would do that if the office was twenty miles away and you had to get dressed, throw on a coat, jump into the car and drive there and back. The fact is you probably would let the “few things” wait until tomorrow and that is exactly what you should do at home. If going into the home office at all hours is one of your weaknesses you need to keep a time record of exactly when and how long you spent there. I think you will be surprised to find out that you’re working a seventy-hour (or more) week. I don’t think you’d do that if you were commuting from home to office.
TAKING HOME TO WORK
I’m sure you’ve all had the experience of taking work home, but once the home office is established you start taking home to work. That can mean anything from bringing the little nipper in with you and setting her on the floor to play to making out tomorrow’s grocery list or party planning for the weekend. When you do this something is going to suffer in the same way it suffers when you would take work home. You should resist this. To those of you who claim that setting up the home office was primarily to allow you to spend more time with your child, you are fooling yourself. Either work will suffer, or the child will suffer or you will suffer, or all of the above. Efficiency depends on clear division of tasks and taking your home to work will muddy the waters in a way that you will lose all definition of both.
INTERFERENCE
You undoubtedly thought that having a home office would get you away from all the interruption of the work office and that you would get more done. Who dreamed up this idea?! I’ve seen home phone lines hooked up in the home office and an open door policy for the rest of the family that makes the home office look like an LA freeway at five. Get rid of all interruptive devices and floor plans. If this sounds like isolation, you’re right, it is! Give yourself the chance to really get some work done. You don’t have the water-cooler crowd to deal with anymore, so don’t try and compensate for them. Do this and watch your efficiency and job satisfaction increase.
HOLD MY HAND
A home office does isolate you. After all, isn’t that one of the reasons you established it? But we are pack-oriented animals and extended isolation begins to undermine our sense of social worth. Time spent in a home office needs to be balanced with time away from that office. It isn’t logical to put yourself up for eight hours, or more, without other human contact. I know…some projects will thrive on just that kind of isolation, but not all of them will fit that category, so don’t become a work hermit. This will undoubtedly mean that you should shorten your work hours or manage the work day in blocks of time that are buffered by outside contacts. Remember that people skills are just as important as work skills and you can’t imagine how boring it is to talk to someone who has been holed up in his work space all week long. And, there is the matter of handholding. We all have problems and we all need someone to listen to us. Short of spending your hard earned money on sessions with a therapist, people contact gives you some opportunity to whine, just as long as you don’t overdo it. It also expands your “what’s happening?” input. Disassociating with the work office takes you out of the loop so don’t forget to fill that space now and then with active people contact. Believe me, you’ll feel better. Remember that work is your creative outlet. It should be fun, exciting and fulfilling. The home office can help you make that happen…if you do it right. – GT