Optimized Home

A friend of mine recently decided to work from home for an entire week as an experiment. This was a big challenge for him because of his senior leadership role at a Fortune 20 company (they haven’t exactly embraced the concept of telecommuting). He pulled it off and figures he saved about $200 that week. Further, he avoided roughly 12 hours of commute time in the car, looking for parking, and walking to the office.

Do the math on what your commute savings would be per day, per week, per year. You have the obvious cost of fuel, tolls, parking, and maintenance. You also have the less obvious expense of the Starbuck’s habit, lunch out, vending machines, and dry cleaning. Not to mention the countless hours in traffic.

First, Get Out of the Office

In The The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferris explains how he went from 14-hour days to 4-hour weeks by getting out of the office, improving his productivity, and filling in the time he saved with more profitable (and enjoyable) endeavors. But you don’t have to move to Buenos Aires for a mini-retirement (like he did) to benefit from some of his advice:

- If you don’t already have it, establish quantifiable metrics to measure success for your role
- Start small by negotiating to work 1 day per week from home on a trial basis (and be more productive at home than you have ever been at the office)
- Use the increased productivity as leverage to push for another day, and so on…

Now, Create the Perfect Home Office

Once you’re home, you need to make the most of your time and space. Here is a list of some of the best thoughts and design tips on setting up an optimized home office:

1. The Ultimate Home Office [LifeHacker]
A great place to start with high-level goals and important fundamentals.

2. 6 Tips for Building a Better Home Office [OutlawDesignBlog]
Now we get to the practical tips. If you haven’t already purchased a second monitor, go buy one now.

3. How to Declutter Your Workspace [LifeHack]
Look around. Chances are your home office is cluttered. Follow these tips to elimate the clutter and setup a system to keep it that way.

4. 10 Hacks to Improve Your Home Office Productivity [LifeHack]
Because there are still plenty of chances for interruption at home, the tip on ubiquitous capture is good advice. Never be without a way to capture an idea.

5. Top 30 Tips for Staying Productive and Sane While Working from Home [ZenHabits]
Fantastic tips to simplify your workspace and stay productive.

6. 8 Ways to Use a Whiteboard in Your Home Office [WebWorkerDaily]
Depending on your decor, it may be a tough call to bring in the whiteboard. This article explains why it is a great idea.

Inspiration: Find Examples of a Perfect Office

Not sure where to start? Take a look at these examples for ideas and inspiration.

7. Home Office Snapshots [HomeOfficeSnapShots]
From the same site that brought you photos of the Digg offices, this section is dedicated to home offices.

8. Photos of workspaces [WhereWeDoWhatWeDo]
A self-described “community-driven visual database of the spaces in which we do…whatever it is we do”

Hope this helps! Drop us a message with your feedback on what makes a perfect office.