I used to hate working from home. All that changed when I decided to redesign my home office from scratch. I’m liking the results so far.
Posted under
Comments
Related Entries
Design Over MatterMore and more I’ve been designing during my leisure hours, which is a sign of a good habit.
Anatomy of a Design DecisionQuote: When we have to design for people who are not us, we can move from self-design to genius design.
Design Comfort Zone
Aug 16, 2009
I used to hate working from home. That may sound weird, but in the past I could never concentrate long enough before my mind would wander off to other things. Maybe because I had conditioned myself to think of “home” as a work-free zone, or perhaps it was that I wasn’t disciplined enough. Usually, any extra work that I couldn’t fit in during the normal course of the day consisted of me dragging my laptop to the local café wi-fi hotspot or just staying at work an extra hour or two to wrap things up. Not fun at all.
A new start
All that changed on July 1, after closing on a first home. Unlike the last place where I had previously lived, an 80-year old rehabbed loft space with no actual rooms, walls or doors, I knew exactly what I was looking for. An extra office space to manage my work with no room for distraction and (somewhat regretfully) not a “man-cave” like I had envisioned for the spare bedroom. I figure that since my profession requires designing for function, why not design an office in the same respect?
The requirements for this new planned work area
- No digital media to stray me away from work, most notably a TV. iPhone for emergency calls only.
- A ridiculously comfortable office chair. Time to throw out my old $75 Office Depot chair that squealed like a wild boar at night. It was Ergohuman’s ME7ERG that caught my eye and I remember Yong Fook’s glowing review of the chair a few years back. It may not be a Herman Miller, but it’s pretty close and from what others say, just as comfortable.
- A new display. I’ve switched and upgraded displays almost every year since 2003, going up about an inch to two a year. Finally, I realized I might as well just roll with the big boys now and go a full 30”. Yep, 30” of pure Apple aluminum goodness to match the unibody MBP. And what’s even better, I found the display off of a Craigslist ad for about a thousand dollars cheaper than retail because of a few bad pixels (two). “So what?” I say. I know I won’t be upgrading for at least a few years now.
- A bookshelf. At home, I’ll sadly admit that I’ve never owned a full-sized bookshelf since I keep most of my design/inspiration/tech books at work. But moving them all here should help me in those situations when I’m in a design rut and just need to grab something tangible.
- No clutter. I’m already pretty minimalist in general so this wasn’t going to be difficult
Clean, minimal — with no room for distraction
So far so good
I think I’ve gotten more done in the past month and a half compared to the last four months combined as far as freelance work goes. Getting this site finally up and running was another big accomplishment for me, and I think I owe that to this new work area.
© 2007 – 2010 Indextwo, All rights reserved. Content & design created by David Trang
Follow me on Twitter
Subscribe
5 comments
Aug 31, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Wayne
I love the office! Great job! I’m thinking about that chair now since my old $75 Office Depot chair is killing me too . ; )
Cheers! Wayne Walker CreamyCSS.com Twitter.com/creamycss
Sep 1, 2009 at 7:15 am
Jonathan Hollin
The new home office looks absolutely great, what a superb environment to work in.
I recently started working from home myself and you are absolutely right to keep the domestic distractions to a minimum. I have iTunes on my Mac but that’s the only entertainment that ever gets in here. No TV, no DVDs and no dancing girls. A serious workspace for serious work.
The chair looks awesome and even looks a little Herman Miller-like. The 30″ ACD is a dream too. I use the same and I’ve never looked back. In fact, I could use a second one! :-)
How do you cope with the glass desk? Doesn’t it pick up fingerprints and smears easily? How does the mouse work on the glass surface?
Kindest regards and good luck.
Sep 1, 2009 at 10:51 pm
David Trang
Thanks Jonathan and Wayne. The 30″ ACD helps so much with getting things organized, I can’t imagine ever going back to something smaller. As for the desk, its got the frosted glass finish underneath and I rarely notice any fingerprints at all on top. That’s pretty impressive considering all the light that shines into the room during the day.
Sep 1, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Jonathan Hollin
That’s cool David. I was curious about the glass. I know from experience that mice don’t work that well on such a surface. I know that Logitech have recently released their “Performance Mouse MX” specifically designed to get around the glass problem, do you use something similar?
Sep 3, 2009 at 8:20 am
David Trang
It looks like the Performance MX is the next step up from what I’m using, the MX Revolution, which I’ve used for about two years now. I just watched this video about its new darkfield laser technology, color me impressed.
I don’t have any issues with what’s going on in my setup, but that’s only because I have the slightly transparent desk mat beneath the mouse. Otherwise, it doesn’t do too well on solid glass.