Creating The Ideal Work From Home Office Space

As a working parent, life can be very busy. In between after school activities and work commitments, finding time for a social life is sometimes impossible. However, both my wife and I work pretty much full time. The week is split fairly evenly in terms of working from home and working away from home.

Working from home

I’m a painter and decorator but also have my online business. My wife works two jobs. One as a special needs teaching assistant and the other as an insurance advisor from home. In addition, she also has an online business and is currently doing an online course. All of this means, we could not be without an office of some sort as we do spend a lot of time online and in front of a computer.

As you can imagine, with all of the working from home we do, we need to ensure our office setup is comfortable and allows us to be productive during the working day. This means everything from our desk chairs to the office chairs for home, work station set up, pin board and our filing system has to be easily accessible and allow us to work efficiently.

Work station set-up

For myself, I like to organise all of my paperwork in our desk drawer. I have colourful ‘inserts’ which separates each section. This allows me to easily find what I need quickly. I also work best with a little background noise. As such, I’ll usually have the radio playing quietly in the background.

My wife however, likes to work in complete silence! Hence, my radio is usually condemned to the desk drawer while my wife works! She also likes a big workspace for her various work equipment and stationary. This allows my wife to work to her best. Of course, most importantly is her coaster for her coffee! Just kidding!

Our shared work station works well for both of us in our different ways and set-ups. In addition, when we’re not working, it doubles up as a homework desk for our twin girls. They recently started high school means means a huge increase in homework compared to their primary school days.

Final thoughts

So, as you can probably tell, our entire family spends a lot of time online and in front of a computer. Whether it’s work for us parents, or homework for our children, having a dedicated space for this, means we can all work efficiently. Do you have a home office or a home working space? I’d love to hear about your set-up in the comments below.