Don't Skimp On Your Workspace, Issue #18

I’ve been friends with Lisa for years. Decades, actually. She’s a rock star real estate agent in Boston and wow, she sure can sell houses.

The funny thing is, despite how long we’ve been friends, I’ve hardly ever been to her house. We almost always meet at a local restaurant for dinner.

The other night, though, and since I don’t live locally anymore, I stopped by her house before we went out.?I was immediately surprised by what I saw in her kitchen: Her computer, files, stapler, pens, and lots of paper were strewn across the kitchen table.

I knew she worked out of her house, but I guess I never gave any thought before to where exactly it all happened!

So I asked if she liked working in the kitchen. She said no. She explained that she’s constantly moving her stuff around to make space for meals and she gets distracted all the time by her family. Plus, she wastes a ton of time and energy getting newly settled whenever it’s time to work.

For anyone who works at home, not having a dedicated space is simply a bad idea.?You don’t need to have an entire room for your office, but you do need to have a dedicated place where everything you need is at your fingertips and where you can leave work-in-progress.

I’ve had my desk in lots of different rooms over the years – a bay window in my dining room, an alcove in my living room, and now, a partitioned section off my bedroom. You don’t need a lot of space (my set-up is only as wide as the Ikea dining room table I work on), but it needs to be your own!

Here are some tips for setting up your ideal VA workplace:

1. Find a quiet, permanent spot.?Yes, the family room may be empty during the day. But often, as a VA, you’ll need to do things when others are around. The guest room is tempting. Unless, of course, you have guests, which will throw you off your game completely.
2. Make sure your desk can handle your work.?I use a dining room table as my desk for a couple of reasons. One is that it’s really deep, so I can have my monitors at the back and still have room for my keyboard without feeling cramped. The dining room table I chose is wider than a standard desk, giving me lots of room on either side for spreading out my notes, my perpetual cup of tea, and a few photos of my family that make me happy.
3. Keep supplies at your fingertips.?This means you don’t keep the tape in your daughter’s room, the stapler in the kitchen, and the index cards in the basement. Whatever you use for work needs to stay handy, even if it means duplicating what’s already in the house. Then let your family know that these things are off-limits. (I jokingly call my desk my “money-making cockpit” and I guarantee no one would ever imagine taking anything from my desk.
4. Plan for paper.?Even though my office is about 98% paper-free (yay!) I do have some files I need to keep. You don’t need a big filing cabinet – but you will need a system for storing these. I have a dresser in my office with three drawers. The top drawer stores my supplies and the 2nd and 3rd hold my paper.

There you go. Easy, but efficient. And, maybe most important, it’s all yours!?You’re in business now, so make sure you set up yourself – and your space – for success.

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Belinda Sandor is the Founder of The VA Connection where she works with new, aspiring, and established Virtual Assistants to help them build thriving businesses through her free online community, courses, and coaching programs. You can learn more here:?https://www.thevaconnection.com/?