Do You Have a Home Office? Would You Like to Have One?
February 27, 2008

In the early '90s, the New York Times recalls, the term home office meant the headquarters of a company. "Back then," the newspaper says, "the very idea of working at home had a certain stigma, except in a few vocations like freelance writing. In the popular imagination, people who worked at home were usually laid off or couldn't hold down a job or were peripheral to the work force.

"But by 2006, according to data collected by the Dieringer Research Group (Brookfield, Wis.) more than 28 million Americans were working from home at least part time." More startling, perhaps -- this was an increase of 10 percent from the year before.

According to the American Homes Furnishings Alliance, 7 in 10 Americans now have offices or designated workstations in their homes, a 112 percent increase since 2000. And a recent survey by the National Association of Home Builders found that home office ranked as the fourth most important feature in a new upscale home.


Another article in the same issue profiled a New York couple who had to find a bigger apartment when they both decided to work from home. The apartment that they lived in was fine for one of them to work but not both at the same time. "He kept talking to me about his work, which is very interesting, but it was really taking time out of my workday," the young woman said. "And when I was alone there was a sense of loneliness and procrastination."

Do you have a home office? Have you thought about getting one?

I didn't used to. But I do now. In the old days I was happy getting to work two hours before anyone else and doing my important-but-not-urgent work in the quiet of an empty office. But since Early to Rise has grown up around my office, that has become impossible. Spurred by our constant "early to rise" preaching, half the company's employees are getting in at the crack of dawn. Which means that some of them were finding their way to my office.

The solution for me was to build a writing studio on top of my garage. It is a single room with a small bathroom, big enough for a writing table, two chairs, some bookshelves and a cigar box. That cigar box is a bonus that came with the room. Nowhere else on the Masterson premises am I allowed to smoke indoors.

Since that writing studio was completed, I've been climbing up to work there at 7:30 every morning. After sprinting and stretching on the beach, I take a big cup of coffee and turn on my computer. The first thing I do every morning is to start my journal. I document the state of my psychology: whether I'm motivated, depressed or hung over. And then I start writing.

Since I've been using a home office, my productivity has increased. The biggest change has been the amount of fiction and poetry I have been able to write. In the old days I felt guilty about writing personal stuff in the office. I have no such feelings about my little writing studio at home. It's there for my personal use. So that's what I'll do there!

My requirements for a good home office are simple and few:

Those who have written me chastising me for smoking will be happy to hear that I seldom actually smoke there. (If I do smoke, it is usually a short cigar once a day after lunch.) Although I do believe it is better that I smoke less, I'm happy to know that there is a box of Nicaraguans waiting for me should I weaken my resolve.

I am writing this in the late afternoon at my office office. I have just completed two very productive meetings and a handful of phone calls. I will do my emails after I'm through writing this and then I'll do more work for the afternoon and evening. But tomorrow morning, after my run, I'll be up there again in my little hideaway chipping away at my dream of being a writer of fiction, one paragraph at a time.

posted by M. Masterson @ 2:03 PM,

1 Comments:

At 11:15 AM, Blogger The People's Chemist said...

Home offices are ideal!

After leaving Big Pharm's lab, I started writing from my home office. Once business started to boom, I thought I'd be cool and purchase some real estate - a home office away from home.

Business kept growing, and I just stayed at home more. The office sat there collecting equity. It's for sale, and my home office is getting bigger - along with my business.

Great post. Thanks ETR for the all the help!

 

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