successful home working
Home office gallery 4
Amazing, so many people have sent in their home office photos lately that I need to start Home office gallery 4! (Don’t miss the Home office gallery 1, Home office gallery 2 and Home Office gallery 3).
As usual I’ll add new photos on the top of this page so you don’t have to go all the way to the bottom when you check in for the latest. Additions are always announced on Twitter.
You might also like Home working style and Home working style 2.
My home office 4
This is Rosie Bray’s latest home office (you can see her previous one in Home Office Gallery 2 – look for the signature blue and white jug with yellow roses!) The picture was taken for an article on home offices in The Independent:
‘Having worked as a producer, I’m used to the hustle and bustle of an open-plan office environment, but there’s nothing like having a quiet room of your own. The room overlooks the garden – perfect for day-dreaming.
‘Storage is really important (God bless Ikea), and I crave good light so I like being near the window. I compromised on style for comfort when it came to my chair – I need proper back support for the hours spent editing at my computer. It’s not the prettiest of chairs but comfort wins. I got it from a company called Milan Direct.’
Rosie Bray, photographer specialising in family and children, www.rosiebray.com
1. Post-it notes. To feed my addiction
2. Business cards. Always have a stash!
3. Pens. All sorts. Preferably not blue.
4. Notebook. A pretty one. I’ll never have one of those cheap, generic, ugly ones I used to have in the office!
5. Chocolate. For emergencies.
6. BlackBerry. Email, phone and Twitter on the go.
7. Mobile internet. Most places have free wi-fi now, but I have this on hand just in case they don’t … or just in case I want to work in the sun!
8. Other essentials. Lip balm, tissues, hand cream and mints, usually.
9. BlackBerry USB cable. I’ve been caught out by a dead battery before, so I keep this cable with my laptop in case I need to recharge.
Fortunately, I’m a social media VA, so I don’t need much equipment. My office is my laptop bag. This means I can work wherever I fancy on a given day – home, a cafe, a pub, a posh hotel, a collaborative working space, anywhere!
Sheree Lowe, social media VA, www.sundowneradmin.com
‘I love my home office! We live in a tiny, peaceful, Wiltshire village so it’s ideal for my work as an editor and project manager in the field of English Language Teaching. I also run training sessions for new editors and project managers.
Having a room as a dedicated office is really important to me – I like to be able to shut myself away when I’m busy, but it also means I can close the door behind me at evenings and weekends.
I love the views – the neighbours’ horses and chickens in one direction, and the top of Woodborough Hill the other way. I also love my huge desk, which is long enough for my two monitors as well as several (reasonably well ordered) piles of books and papers. When I’m working on proofs I can clear the piles on to the floor and spread the pages out. I also love being surrounded by books and photos of family and friends as a reminder of life outside the office walls!’
Karen White, editor & project manager, www.facebook.com/WhiteInkLimited
‘I swoosh a cape for my superheroes from a neat corner workspace. It’s compact but I focus better if my desk is well-ordered. Hardware consists of a super-pretty, super-fast iMac, iPhone4, printer and external HD – next on my list is an iPad2 so I can be more of a nomad. A great storage initiative has been the picture rails – they lift all of the clutter off my desk while keeping it close to hand. The rails hold a purplicious pin board [handy for essential numbers I need in daily sight]; a bunch of notebooks – from Moleskine to Muji – all with squared pages; and a stack of Helvetindex cards which have a subtle dot grid for capturing quick notes and ideas – love these. As a brand-geek, you might also spot splashes of purple and turquoise all over the place, and of course the odd pic of a superhero! After all, where would I be without them?’
Alyssa Aldersley, sidekick to superheroes, www.sidekickva.com
Simon Layfield taught physics for 20 years. He can now be found juicing apples out the back of his house with help from his wife, Lisa, an acupuncturist. Each pressing takes around an hour with the press taking 60kg of apples at a time. It takes about 2kg of apples to produce a litre of juice. The juice is then pumped up to barrel height and then gravity fed into a double siphon bottle filter: ‘It’s so rewarding working for yourself. I love the variety – everything from the grunt-work of washing the apples to delivering to retailers. It’s pretty relentlessly non-stop – you spend every hour working or thinking about the business and working from home means it’s difficult to switch off. But there’s nothing like producing a bottle of juice that people love to drink. I love doing local farmers’ markets – it’s so nourishing when people come up to you and give you feedback. It keeps you going.’
Simon Layfield, High Peak Juice Company
If you’d like a link to your website and to share your home office, whether it be the kitchen table, garage, shed, attic, studio, workshop, spare bedroom, basement, hammock or somewhere else, just email a photo of it to me along with about 100 words on what you like (or maybe dislike) about it. Or maybe you’d like to show us the view from your desk, the objects that inspire you, or some essential piece of equipment.
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