Organizing Your Home Office

It’s no wonder that many new houses come with home offices, and many homebuyers want them. If you’re not already working from home, you may be considering it or currently applying for one of the remote jobs that are becoming more common as employers recognize the advantages of offering flexible working arrangements.

The benefits of work-from-home jobs are so attractive that 27% of employed Americans now work remotely. People who work from home are happier, more productive, and have better work-life balance than commuters. By staying off the highways at rush hour, they convert nearly an hour a day of behind-the-wheel frustration to productivity on the job. And if they work from home full-time, they can lower their carbon footprint to less than half that of on-site workers.

“In every industry, remote workers reported higher levels of happiness and job satisfaction, less burnout, and greater life-work balance overall,” reported the Global Life-Work Survey 2023 conducted by IE University in Spain. Its 1,000 respondents, representing Europe, Africa, Canada, the United States, Latin America, and Asia, worked in a range of industries and included remote, hybrid, and office workers.

Around the world, 42% of remote workers — twice as many as those who toiled in offices — reported high levels of happiness. In the 4 weeks preceding the survey, office employees reported experiencing burnout symptoms 41% of the time, while the burnout rate for remote workers was considerably lower at 26%.

Still, a one-in-four chance of burnout on the job is too high. If you work remotely, you owe it to yourself to create a home workplace whose layout and ambience promote good health and a good mood as well as productivity.

If you already have a home office, your spring cleaning won’t be complete until you declutter and reorganize it. While you’re doing so, you can upgrade its furnishings as needed to serve you better. The approach of Tax Day, April 15, is a reminder to clear out whatever old tax records and assorted paperwork you no longer need. It’s time to shred it and forget it!

Furnishing and Organizing the Space You Have

If your house has a spare room, you’re all set. Just gather everything you’ll need for a comfortable, low-stress workplace and move it in. For most people who work at home, the essentials are likely to include:

• A table or a desk, which could be one that adjusts so you can take turns standing and sitting

• An ergonomic chair

• A computer setup with high-speed internet and uninterrupted Wi-Fi

• Peripherals you need for your job, such as:

  - Computer mouse and mouse pad

  - Webcam

  - Printer

  - Scanner

  - Photocopier

  - Calculator

  - Phone and charging pad

  - Noise-canceling headphones

• Room and task lighting that’s easy on the eyes

• File folders, printer paper and ink, notebooks, and sticky notes

• Filing space in your desk or a cabinet

• Paper, pens, envelopes, and postage stamps for correspondence

• Postal scale

• Stapler

• Scissors

• Wastebasket

• Area rug to keep your slippered feet warm if you have a cold floor

• Organizing trays or dividers to keep your desk drawers neat

• Clear bins or boxes for devices and supplies you need close at hand or those that don’t fit well into drawers or cabinets

• A mug for coffee or tea, a water bottle to keep you hydrated, and a suitable surface to set them on

• A few high-energy, low-sugar snacks to stash in a drawer that’s easy to reach

• A device to play the music you need for inspiration

• Extras that make you happy, like favorite photos, artwork, house plants, or fresh flowers

Creative Ways to Acquire the Office Space You Need

Design a Cloffice. That’s not a typo — it’s a walk-in closet you make into your home office. It’s pretty easy to do since these spacious closets usually have plenty of shelves you can use for storage. You do need to make sure your desk, chair, and necessary electronics and lighting fixtures will fit comfortably. Just like when you work in a full room, you can close the cloffice door at the end of the workday so that you don’t take your job “home” with you. 

Share the Guest Room, Attic, or Garage. Sharing one of these areas doesn’t have to be a pain. See the section below for space-saving, all-in-one furniture systems. Some are especially good for guest rooms because they include beds.

If you’d rather use furniture that comes by the piece, start with a tall, wide room divider, or more than one, to give you the feeling of having an actual office. Then you can add your workplace furnishings, making the most of vertical space for storing the supplies and files you’ll need to do your work.

Creature comforts like a pretty plant and a music source will be especially welcome in your shared space. If you’re working in the attic or garage, you might want to add a mini fridge for drinks and snacks so that you won’t need to break your train of thought and walk to the kitchen whenever you need refreshments.

Commute to Your Backyard Shed. You could move your office gear into the shed that currently holds a lawn mower, garden hose, wheelbarrow, fertilizer, and sacks of seed. But then what would you do with the stuff you displaced? It’s more fun to select a finished office shed from the many available or have one custom-made. A whole industry is devoted to these now.

For $100, you could launch your modest start-up in a 120-square-foot prefab backyard office shed pod that features a wall of windows. Or you could spend as many thousands as you like on a “she shed” with all the amenities you could ask for. Working in the backyard could be the best of both worlds if you want to be close enough to the house to keep in touch with your family but far enough from it to focus on your tasks.

Recycle a Shipping Container. Standard shipping containers are 20 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 8.5 or 9.5 feet high. That’s a 160-square-foot space to use as you please. And as the team at Patrice Rios Design in Austin, Texas discovered, creating a home office is an awesome way to give a shipping container a new life.

One stunning container office, painted black, has plenty of glass cutouts for natural light. The interior boasts   mixed wood and tile flooring, track and pendant bulb lighting, shelving, and custom wallpaper. The office sits on a plant-studded patio with a comfortable chair that the occupant can use for lunch breaks.

All-in-One Home Office Furnishing Solutions

When it comes to furniture, you can search for compatible pieces to place in your office in hopes that they’ll play well together — or choose an all-in-one solution that suits your space, needs, color scheme, and decorating style.

Remember the Murphy bed? Meet its hardworking children, the Murphy offices. If you must make a guest room do double duty as an office, there’s a Murphy bed/desk combo. Whether the queen-size bed or the desk emerges depends on how you pull the furniture out from the wall. There’s a fancier version, still workable for a medium-size bedroom, that comes with built-in cabinets, shelves, and an adjustable desk position. If space is tight, you could try a simple, attractive wooden credenza that folds out into a queen bed.

You might also consider a Murphy desk/bed if you live in a studio apartment that doubles as your workplace. One of these combos might even be the perfect solution if you’re a night owl working a weird schedule in a house full of morning people who are light sleepers. Rather than annoying family members or roommates on your way to your bedroom, you can grab 40 winks on the fold-out bed in your office, then restore it to desk mode and get back to work.

If you’re planning to stay awake whenever you’re in your home office, you have even more wall systems to choose from. Preston and Elfa, both available through The Container Store, are two manufacturers that offer custom organizational and storage solutions that include plenty of desk or workspace as well as whatever type of cabinets, drawers, or shelving you need.

These systems have options like LED lighting and glass doors and can be designed to fit your home office space to a T. If you decide you’d like to include an upscale wall bed, you can get that, too. Design specialists will work with you in-store, virtually, or in your home to develop your free custom space design.

Once Organized, Stay Organized

However you put your office together, once you’ve organized it, all you need to do is keep it that way by forbidding clutter to pile up. As you file your tax return this spring, keep in mind that the IRS requires you to keep tax records for only 3 years in most cases. You’ll need to keep them for 7 years only if you file a claim for a loss from worthless securities or bad debt deduction. So, toss the tax records you don’t need, and do the same for other work-related paperwork that’s outlived its usefulness. Declutter every week from now on, and you can continue to find happiness and productivity in your personalized home office.