Your Home Office

We all need an office, somewhere where we can concentrate, think and have all the tools that we need at hand and ready to go when we need them.

Even if you don’t work from home you still need this space to work from when you get home to put your things and draw up notes or maybe even carry on the work that you maybe need for a deadline. Taking work home has become infectious with people now routinely working at night on weekends and increasingly when on holiday.

Unless you are really skilful working from home means that you are never completely at work and you’re never completely at home either. This crossing of lines can sometimes harm both your work and life if you let it because it can mean that you are not getting enough sleep and are always tired.

The spaces in which we live and work profoundly affect your mental state to be able to switch off at the end of the day when you are out of the office is a good skill to have then again so is thinking of things outside the office but can overcome your relaxation time and as I said before can make you tired.

The best of all possible worlds is to mix the two and work from home. How is this possible? By putting an office in the backyard. Like a commuter you can get dressed, have breakfast, say goodbye to the cat and walk across all of a few paving stones to your office then crack on with your work. Outside the house you won’t be disturbed by anything or anyone and most importantly control your environment and focus on work so you can get it done and “go home.”

You can build a backyard office however it is not essential. Several companies now make very high capability, low-cost prefabricated offices so that you can just buy one and drop it in the yard, here are a few examples:

The tetra shed, is a modular system for living and working that can be combined into clusters of up to six. One or two are perfect for a backyard and you can customise the exterior with different colours and materials including rubber, steel, zinc and copper.

The office pod is 7 ft by 7ft prefab office with some innovative features. The office itself has outlets internally and a single connector gets juice from the house, the walls reflect light from the ceiling and has a built in desk and wood slats to give you the basics of a home office.