How to style your home office to foster inspiration and productivity

By
Alexandra Spangaro
October 17, 2017
Colour pop: Ensure you pick a colour scheme that won't overload your senses. Photo: Officeworks

When you work from home, it can be hard to maintain a clear work-life split. Work documents pile up around the house, your computer pings emails at you all hours of the day and night; suddenly, the time you are meant to spend sitting down to dinner with a glass of red has transitioned into you being hunched over your laptop on the kitchen table with leftover Pad Thai, staring at a computer screen until 10pm. (Or maybe that’s just me?)

To avoid such an unproductive nightmare – which in the long term could be destructive to your health and work – interiors expert Jen Bishop says it is crucial for people who work from home to have a dedicated work-only space.

And Bishop would know: she works from her stylish home office every day, running her website Interiors Addict

“It’s a really important part of small business ownership because it helps separate work and home life, allowing me to physically shut the door at the end of the day.” 

Bishop says any setting devoted to work needs to foster inspiration and productivity.    

“It’s really important for me to feel inspired in my office.

“Writing and researching a visual industry like interior design, you really need to feel that way. “

Bishop has recently teamed up with Officeworks to help people create their own productive workspace and help them improve their overall wellbeing.

To create an inspiring work space, Bishop suggests hanging an inspiration board, decorated with anything from magazine images to inspirational quotes, but she says it must “visualise what success looks like”.  

A fresh coat of paint won’t go astray either.

“Decide on a colour scheme and stick to it,” she says.

“It will keep things looking stylish and inspiring while, at the same time, uniform and uncluttered.”

Ensure you stick to a colour pallette of three hues – two contrasting and one base colour – to avoid a colour overload. Adding textural elements can also make your work space warm and comfortable, says Bishop. . 

Bishop’s home office has a white and gold theme, which she says  gives it a “feminine feel without being too cliche and girly, which I like.”

“It’s also quite a simple and clean space, with doors out onto my deck so it has a lot of natural light, all of which helps to keep me focused and relaxed.”

Having an abundance of light sources is something Bishop says is key to a functional space. Even if you don’t have large windows into your room, you can always use lamps to create a bright space.

As well as being inspirational, a home office needs to be functional.

Ensuring you choose the right chair is crucial, one that can be adjusted to your desk height and your body. 

“If you’re in a space with rugs or carpet, a chair with wheels can be impractical so consider your flooring when selecting one,” Bishop says.

Having a to-do list will help keep you organised. Bishops suggest a whiteboard on a wall and an all-in-one printer, copier and fax machine to minimise space taken up by chunky electronics.

And of course, you’re going to need plenty of storage.

“Storage is everything. If there’s a place for everything and everything is in its place, you’ll keep the desk tidy. Tidy desk, tidy mind.”

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