If you work from home, it can be a big help to set aside part of your home or apartment for a home office, a place that’s all business from the start of your working day to its end. Even if the hours change each day, having a place set aside where you do your job and only your job helps many people focus (and it helps many people get a tax credit every year.)
However, your home office needs a few things if you want it to be a good place to work. Some of them are required, some are just very useful, but you should at least consider every item on the following list.
1. A Standing Desk
A big reason why so many Americans are out of shape is because they have desk jobs and have to sit in one place for hours every day. You can always go for a jog after work hours end, but it also helps to not be sitting for all that time. That’s why many office supply stores now offer standing desks with higher surfaces, and you can get special platforms that let you raise the surface of a normal desk and bring it back down when you’re tired of standing.
2. Fast Home Internet
Depending on your job description, a fast home internet connection ranges from very useful to absolutely essential. A fast, symmetrical home internet lets you connect to your employer and your coworkers with voice and video chat with no lag, and it lets you upload, download, and otherwise interact with projects in your company’s cloud space. If you do a lot of programming with big software and rendering jobs, or if your boss insists on having some kind of oversight to let you work at home, a good home internet connection should be part of your home office.
3. A Comfortable Chair
While standing desks help you burn calories, your legs will eventually get tired and that’s when you’ll need a good chair. Your manager might not think getting good, comfortable chairs is worth the money, but you can spend your own budget however you want when you’re setting up a home office. A good chair can stand up to consistent use every day, conform to your body’s curves, and even lift up high enough to let you work at a standing desk that doesn’t have an adjustable height.
Obviously your home office should also have a computer that fits your job and a printer-scanner if you still interact with physical paperwork. Still, with a good chair, a standing desk, and a high-speed gigabit internet connection, your home office setup will be ready for any kind of work.