Working from home might sound ideal, but when you need to try and fit a functional office into your domestic space, every spare inch counts. In a commercial setting, excess paperwork and bulky tech items are nothing to worry about, but in the home? You need to find a way to save space and maximise organisation, which is where the following hacks come in:
Choose furniture with in-built storage
Minimalist designs looks great, but they can’t house anything, so if you are short on space, sacrifice an ultra-streamlined aesthetic for awesome desks with drawers instead. You’ll still have a seriously stylish office, just with less clutter on show and a whole lot more practicality. Don’t forget that you always have more possessions than you realise and drawers quickly prove to be worth their weight in gold.
Go paper-free
It’s a hard habit to break, but having paper copies of everything wastes more than just valuable materials, it also drains your home office of clear surfaces. A good rule of thumb is to scan instead of print, saving everything as a digital document instead of a physical one. If you really need a version you can hold, you can turn on the printer, but otherwise a saved file on a hard drive will work just fine – and remember, going paper-free could actually benefit your business, according to Forbes.
Hide the printer
Speaking of printers, have you ever noticed how bulky they are? Swap out large designs for a super-sleek wireless option that you can stash in a desk drawer for the ultimate in space-saving and tidy home offices. A small hole in the back of the drawer will let you connect the power cord, but without ruining the cable-free illusion.
Find hidden potential
Think about the things that you would like out of the way and you might be surprised at how you can conceal them. For example, reading glasses, external hard drives, USB sticks and other small items could be easily stowed away on a small shelf fixed to the back of your monitor. Everything is within reach for when you need it, yet out of sight when an uncluttered work surface is the top priority.
Subscribe to a shredding service
Save a lot of valuable space by not investing in a shredder for your office. Instead, take your documents to a shredding service or have them collected regularly, if you have a great deal of confidential documents that have to be destroyed. Similarly, you can negate the need for an industrial copier by employing the services of a specialist company.
Tidy your cables
Few things are as unsightly as a mass of trailing cables, so if you absolutely cannot go wireless, invest in some cost-effective cable clips that can be stuck somewhere out of sight, allowing you to keep your cables all neat, functional and out of the way. Anyone with Apple products knows all too well the value of protecting charging cables, so this could be a money-saving tip as well.
Create a mobile desk
If you need to be able to work on the move, try creating yourself a fully mobile, exceptionally compact ‘office’. A chic portfolio can house a slimline laptop, charger, stationery and a few other key additions without breaking sweat. By keeping it all in a small carrier, you can simply put it in a desk drawer when not needed.
Saving space in your home office really comes down to working smart and staying organised. By adopting a few considerations that make it easier to work more neatly, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much extra room you can unearth.
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