UPGRADE TO A BUSINESS-CLASS OFFICE… without spending a fortune
The only thing we can say about the future of work with any certainty is this: it’s uncertain. Whatever happens, though, it seems likely that working from home is going to become an integral part of many people’s working lives, so it makes sense to invest a few pounds to make it a pleasant – and productive – place to be. Our ethos in this feature is to work out where to invest to make the maximum possible impact. After all, there are numerous ways to spend money, and not all of them are immediately obvious. There may also be a way to extract some fresh usage out of a piece of equipment, including turning a digital SLR into a top-quality webcam (see p33).
We’ve split our advice into three main categories: the workspace, broadband and meetings. By “workspace”, we mean the core area where you’re going to be working. Whilst we feel that recommending a desk and chair is beyond the remit and expertise of a computer magazine, we have a few pointers that may prove useful, before settling into our comfort zone: laptops, PCs, monitors, printers and peripherals. Out of those, as we explain, the monitor is arguably the most important.
We’ll then examine your broadband connection, which is vital because there’s no way you’ll make the impression you want without a solid connection. We also explain why some redundancy is an excellent idea that won’t cost a fortune.
Finally, we come to meetings, with our emphasis being on how to come across professionally. Some of our tips won’t cost a penny, while others may require an investment. However much you intend to spend, our advice could make a big impact.
If you have any homeworking tips that you would like to share with fellow PC Pro readers – or perhaps a must-buy item – please email letters@pcpro.co.uk.
THE WORKSPACE
It’s perhaps ironic that the one item in least need of an upgrade to create a professional-grade office is your laptop or PC. If it’s fast enough to do the job, smarter upgrades may be adding more storage, buying a new keyboard or (and this is something we talk about a lot) hooking up a nice widescreen monitor.
The key thing is to make your workspace as productive as possible. We almost wrote “clean” there, but we’re well aware that some people thrive in messy workspaces – and surely one advantage of working from home is that the boss isn’t there to criticise how tidy, or otherwise, you keep your desk.
