How to Design The perfect home office for organization, creativity & Comfort
Whether your home office is your primary place of work, or an “office away from the office” for some after-hours productivity; more people are working from home than ever before. With the prevalence of tools to effectively manage remote workers and the digitization of many industries, it’s a phenomenon that will only see more popularity in the coming years.
Designing a perfect home office is more than a comfort for many people, it’s critical to their ongoing success and professional development. But designing a home office that works for you can be challenging. If you turn toward the internet, you’ll find no shortage of articles that offer advice about how to organize and adapt your home office to meet your needs.
*Note From The Designer*
You’ll find plenty of advice about how decluttering your desk clears the mind or giving yourself a window inspires your creativity. That’s all great, but I’d like to invite you to explore the topic on a deeper level.
In this article, I want to talk about home office design and organization from the viewpoint of a professional designer. I want to break down the process that goes into creating a stunning, functional office space where you can thrive. In other words, I’m not going to tell you to clean your desk. I’m instead hoping to introduce you to a mindset that prepares you to start building your dream office today.
Start with Your Goals
The first step in designing anything is to lay out design goals. It can be as simple as answering the question, “what do you want your office to do?” As you plan your design, just apply every decision you make to that answer.
As an example, if you say “I want my office to be easy to organize and maintain, and be free of distractions,” ask yourself how every piece of new furniture accomplishes those two goals. Is there anything in your office now that doesn’t contribute to these goals? Anything that is counter to them? Get rid of it.
Writing these goals down or just keeping them in mind will help you design effectively.
Form & Function – The Balancing Act
It’s no secret that style is a critical element in creating a perfect home office, and it’s something we’ll touch on more later. But one needs to be careful not to go overboard when choosing furniture and decor that accommodate our aesthetic tastes.
One of the most significant advantages of working from home is the complete control you have over your environment – but taking that command over your space can do just as much harm as good if we don’t harness it carefully.
When selecting pieces for your office, keep in mind that those pieces are there to serve you first and foremost. While we want to achieve results that compliment your style and bring out your personality, we should never sacrifice function for form. The key is to look for pieces that fit your aesthetic goals while being invaluable tools for daily use.
When it comes to filing systems, cabinetry, shelving, desks, and more, striking a balance between comfort, style, and usability is critical to a perfect design.
You want your office to be a place that promotes productivity and efficiency but isn’t the robotic, cubicle-like space that you’ve escaped from by working from home.
Organizing Through Systems
Organization is part art and part science. Here we are going to talk about the more scientific part.
Everybody knows that keeping a tidy and organized office is key to success. But from a design standpoint, it’s important to think about how we are going to create a space that lends itself to being organized.
People are inherently drawn to organizing, but that doesn’t mean they do it automatically. If you’ve ever played the game Tetris, you can see how the act of organizing rewards the brain. But tidying up your office isn’t as fun as playing Tetris. Why?
The reason that it feels good to organize Tetris pieces is that the game is designed to make them fit together. If the blocks were utterly incompatible with one another, it would only be a stressful experience and certainly not worth anybody’s quarter.
To incorporate organization into your design, you aren’t playing the game; you’re creating the pieces. By including systems that lend themselves to staying organized, maintaining it becomes a rewarding experience. Rather than something you force yourself to do now and then, it becomes second-nature.
Whether it’s filing systems, office cabinets, drawers, cable management, or anything else it’s important to make use of pieces that fit together with one another and provide a natural place for your things.
The Personal Touch
Having said you should choose functional pieces without sacrificing style, we need to think about how we can put your personality into the room. Whether you want your office to have a consistent look with the rest of your home or be a unique getaway, we just need to envision it first.
The personal touch is of course, personal. I can’t tell you what that means for you, but I can highlight the importance of considering it as a part of your overall design.
First, I know I said I’d leave out the fluff, but it’s essential to understand the value of displaying things that motivate and inspire you. When you walk into an attorney’s office, their degrees, certifications, and awards hung behind their desk aren’t there to impress you or establish credibility.
They are there because every time that person looks at that wall, they see something that you don’t. They see all the late nights, countless pots of black coffee, and hours of research that earned those pieces of paper.
I’m not saying you should make your home office look like an attorney’s, but you absolutely should display the things that inspire you to put your best foot forward. Whether it’s photos of your family, items that carry fond memories, or decorations that get your creative juices flowing, you want to design a space where you can thrive.
Alright, enough of that. Aside from decor and knick-knacks, we can also bring out the personal touch through the furniture and overall design of the room. Do you prefer a modern and minimalist space that promotes sharp thinking, or a cozy book-in-front-of-the-fireplace kind of feel? Whatever your tastes, we want to use pieces that allow the final product to have that character.
The Blueprint for Success
Every great design work starts with a blueprint. If you take nothing else from this article, at least understand that designing an office that sets you up for success is achievable. You can even start now.
Whether you are thinking of converting a bedroom or closet into a home office, or your current office just isn’t living up to its potential, anybody can apply these principles to create a space that looks amazing and brings out their best work.
If your office is cluttered, messy, and ugly, rather than moving furniture around and hiding that clutter, think about how you can craft designs that solve these problems head-on. It starts by laying out your goals, and with some critical thinking and a little determination, ends with a home office that is the envy of your household.
