How to Set Up a Productive Home Office – A Step-by-Step Guide

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Whether you run a freelance business or you work from home, setting up a productive home office is an important way to keep you focused throughout the day.

However, it can be hard to know where to get started! If you don’t have much room or you’re creating your first home office, you might feel overwhelmed about finding a productive space for your work.

In this blog post, I want to discuss how to set up a productive home office for your remote work, blogging or freelance career.

You don’t need a separate room or a lot of money to create a successful home office. You could simply work from your family’s dining room table when it’s not in use, or use a small corner of your living room to complete your work.

In this blog post, I’ve put together a simple step-by-step guide to setting up a productive home office. You can use these tips to create a successful space that works for you!

There are a few steps to set up a productive home office, including:

  1. Choose a dedicated space
  2. Get all your essentials ready
  3. Sort out your storage
  4. Get decorating
  5. Organise your space

Let’s take a look at these steps in a little more detail…

1. Choose a dedicated space

First things first, you need to choose a dedicated space for your home office.

If you’re living in a busy house, it might be best to take yourself into a different room – or you could rent an office space if you prefer to work out of the house.

a dedicated desk space for a home office

Avoid distractions while you work from home by choosing the right place to work from day one. Your dedicated office space needs a good internet connection and it needs to be well-lit, too.

2. Get all your essentials

Once you’ve found the right space, you need to get all your essentials ready.

This might be big things like a computer and a desk, or it might be small touches like headphones, pens, paper, notebooks and highlighters.

pastel notebooks for your home office

You need to get all your work from home essentials before you can start using your productive home office. That way, you’re prepared for anything and you can stay productive from the start.

3. Sort out your storage

Next, you need to sort out your storage.

Even when you have all your essentials, you need to know where you’re keeping everything in your productive home office.

If you work from a space that people use for something else too, such as your dining room table, think about how you can use boxes and cabinets to file away important work. This can keep everything neatly stored and packed away until you start to work again!

If you use a desk, try to utilise drawers, boxes and other storage items to keep everything organised and easy to find whenever you need it.

4. Get decorating!

After you’ve got your essentials and you’ve sorted out your storage options, it’s time to think about decorating. This is a fun way to make your space your own. You could add a few plants to add a bit of life to your productive home office or hang up some beautiful artwork.

woman in grey sweater working from home

If you’re using a separate room, you could decorate the walls with posters that will make you smile or motivate you during the day.

I’ve got a tub of lip balm on my desk, as well as a few plants, mementoes and cute badges. This adds a little colour to my desk, and it means not everything is just about work.

5. Organise your space

Get ready for your first day of work by organising your space. Get your pens, notebooks or jotters out and prepare for a productive day.

This might mean setting up the right online accounts or just organising your desk to give yourself the maximum amount of room to work.

home office set up

How you organise your space may depend on what work you need to do each day. If you offer great translation services to your clients, you may need specific software ready to go on your computer.

If you know you need to make notes by hand, make sure your notebooks are on-hand!

Do you have a home office? Do you like to work from home? How do you set up a productive workspace at home?

Let me know all your thoughts in the comments below 🙂

Happy reading x

Author: Not-So-Modern-Girl

I’m Eleanor, welcome to my little corner of the internet! I’m a freelance content writer and book lover from Yorkshire. On my blog, I write about life as a 20-something, including posts about freelance life, blogging, book reviews and more. I also write resources for bloggers and writers on my Gumroad account. Check out my links below or connect with me on social media!

53 thoughts

  3. I always take time to decide on a decorative storage. It should be conveniently located in separate sections. The suggestions you have mentioned in this post are helpful for a productive home office and it should be updated whenever necessary.

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  5. I don’t do a job where I can work from home but I have set up my own space to do blogging and it’s definitely helped a lot! I loved decorating it and as we’re moving I’m looking forward to decorating my new space!
    Em – earthlyem.co.uk

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  8. I definitely think you’ve got to have a space that you want to go to so adding those finishing touches really helps with that. I also think a comfortable chair is a must to help productivity.

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  12. Some great ideas. I have my garden office in my parents house but it’s being used as more or less of a storage space at the moment, in preparation for my move soon (with JUST enough space to do Yoga, haha!) but I have an office in my new house and I’m currently designing / decorating it and it’s so exciting to have a brand new space for work, which I can design exactly how I like it.

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    1. That’s fantastic Jenny! A garden office sounds so nice, but it’s great that you’re getting your own space soon – I can’t wait to see pictures of your new blogging office 🙂

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  15. These are some great tips to get started with a home office. Like you said, a dedicated corner is sufficient to begin with if there is no extra room for an office. Organised space is big one for me. I find it easier to focus when there are less things lying around me. Thanks for sharing these ideas.

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  16. This is a fabulous post – having my own dedicated office space in the house was such a game-changer for my productivity level. I recently just painted it and its even more amazing feeling like it’s even more my space. Love your suggestions with storage as that’s something I lacked when first setting up my office and it felt cluttered.

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    1. That’s great Alex, thank you for reading and commenting! I think having your own space can really help with productivity and it can help you avoid distractions, too 🙂 thank you for sharing your experiences x

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  17. I’ve had my office space in the same room as my bedroom, living room, and dinning room for so long now, that I can truly attest to the importance of storage options. I wish I could do more to have better home work environment

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  20. Thanks for this post. I usually work from my couch and it’s causing real problems for my back and work-life balance. I definitely need to create a designated work space at home.

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  21. I couldn’t agree more about having a dedicated office space, ideally in a room that you can close the door on at the end of the day! My essentials are my phone and my laptop stand, which means I’m not hunched over my keyboard and I don’t get neck ache any more 🙂

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    1. Thank you Andrea 🙂 Yes I think having everything you need is so important, especially if you want to be productive! I love using a paper diary – and a calendar board sounds like a great addition.

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  24. This came at a good time as I have just rearranged my desk/workspace. But still waiting to organise it properly. Just moved the furniture to start. After I recover from my minor surgery I am excited to get organised. Thank you for sharing these suggestions. I will keep these in mind.

    Lauren – bournemouthgirl

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