The Best Location in Your Home For Your Office
Most home offices are simply set up in whatever space is available. For example the corner of a bedroom, the dining room table, the basement, a guest or spare bedroom or even upstairs in the attic.
Some of these locations will work perfectly for your home office but others just aren’t so hot. When deciding on exactly what area of the home you should use as your workspace there are some guidelines that you must keep in mind.
There are basically two types of home offices: home administration centers and income producing workspaces. Home administration centers are typically used for paying household bills, organizing the family budget, and other household management tasks. Income producing workspaces are work spaces necessary to producing a business income from home.
If your profession keeps you at home it is best to have a space in your home that you use specifically for that purpose so that you are able to keep your work and home energies as separate as you can.
If you have to hold meetings with clients from your home office it is best if clients can utilize an entrance separate from the one used by your family. This allows your clients to enter and exit without having to pass through your living spaces. This keeps everyone’s energies focused on business.
Clients who are forced to walk through your living room before entering your office might make shift from business focus and without their realizing their confidence in your capabilities and professionalism might be weakened subconsciously.
Make sure that you have created a clear pathway to your home business entrance. This is especially important if the entrance is at the side or back of the house. This allows your clients to know where they should go when they arrive for the first time.
Locations to Avoid
Certain areas of the home are not properly suited for home office use. Locations that you should avoid include the center of the home (tai chi). If you place your home office in this area your work will dominate over your family life. You don’t want this as it creates an unbalanced life.
- The bedroom is another area to avoid. Work issues can cause relationship conflicts. Your thoughts of work might begin to interfere with your sleep and you also might feel unfocused and drowsy while trying to get your work done.
- Placing your office in a nook underneath the stairs is also a bad idea. This area has a feeling of oppressive overhead energy and it might cause you to experience headaches. It also might cause to not be able to concentrate. You won’t be on top of your game when working under the stairs.
- You never want to work next to a bathroom where your desk and toilet are on opposite sides of a shared wall- this allows your entire business chi to be flushed down the toilet thus causing poor work performance.
Now sometimes we don’t have any other option than to place our home office in one of the spots mentioned and there are many “cure” in feng shui to help balance the bad chi (energy) and increase the postive chi. I’ll discuss these fixes (“cures”) in an upcoming article.