Working from home? This is what you need for your home office

If you’re planning to work from home, it might be a good idea to invest in some office equipment. Let’s look at some budget-friendly home office essentials that won’t break the bank.

These days a lot of people work from a home office, whether they’re self-employed, contractors, or freelancers, or even a small business owner.

In fact, here are 10 business ideas to do from your home office.

Here are some essentials that you need when you’re going to be working from home.

Good WiFi

High-speed WiFi is an essential. Struggling through a bad connection every day is going to slow down your work a lot and cause a lot of frustration. Also, if  your sound or audio keeps dropping while you’re in client meetings, it’ll make your business seem unprofessional—the same if you miss deadlines because you couldn’t upload files or get connected in time. 

You should aim for at least 25mbps speed.

See also: How to build great customer relationships

Second monitor

A second monitor can be a life-saver: It’ll let you process information more easily, and you can also keep an eye on several things at once. It gives you more real estate to work with.

It’ll also help you avoid sitting hunched over a small laptop for hours.

You can buy second-hand monitors cheaply on places like Facebook Marketplace or eBay. 

If you don’t want to buy a second monitor, you can use an old iPad you’ve got lying around or make the most out of your phone by getting a phone stand.

Good chair

If you’re gonna be spending hours a day in a chair, you should make sure it’s a good one. What you should get really depends on your preferences: do you want a soft or hard chair? A tall back or low back? Maybe you want to sit on an exercise ball instead of a chair?

You can go to places like IKEA to test out different chairs, and then you can look for a second-hand equivalent online. Sometimes people even give away office chairs because they are moving or they don’t have the space for them.

Good lighting

Good lighting is important for your eyes. It can prevent eye strain, headaches, and dry eyes. In fact, sitting near a window reduces the chances of eyestrain by 51% and makes you 63% less likely to get a headache.

Having warm light in your home office will also create a relaxing atmosphere, and can be good for your mood and overall wellbeing. How about getting a statement lamp for your background, that both brightens up your space and helps establish your brand on video calls?

Peace and quiet

Another home office essential: make sure to set up your office somewhere you won’t be disturbed, whether that’s by family, pets, or outside noise. If you live in a noisy area, it might be worth investing in some cheap sound isolation solutions, or buy noise-cancelling headphones with a microphone. 

The noise-cancelling feature will ensure you don’t get disturbed by noise, while a good microphone will help your video call software filter out background noise and only pick up your voice.