housethingsgoing
A frog and a duck living in a 4rm resale flat
How we designed our small but productive WFH setup!
16
As someone who's been working from home since 2020 - and will likely continue to do so for the foreseaable future, having a conducive WFH corner in our home was super duper important (mainly because I need to stay employed to pay the mortgage LOL) We've experimented with various configurations over the last one and a half years of living here, and finally arrived at something that seems ideal and here to stay. Here are some factors we've considered in the process of building this little space - hopefully it helps you too! 
1. Where your windows are In my previous home, I used to work right beside the door and super far away from the windows because… the Wi-Fi was weak and couldn’t reach all the way into my room LOL. Now that I’ve been empowered by a stronger Wi-Fi connection, I decided to have my desk right beside the windows! I initially had the desk right in front of the window which means it was behind my desktop and I would look out of the window directly - this was nice because I could just look up from my laptop/work and enjoy the view (it’s just a view of my neighbour’s house LOL thanks HDB for building homes so close together, but it’s better than nothing right) But this arrangement soon became quite inconvenient because it was almost impossible for me to lean across the table to open the windows wide enough for good ventilation. My arms were too short and I would feel like adjusting the blinds and pushing the windows out (or even pulling them back in) was pretty inconvenient. We changed the layout to the current one where the windows are beside the table instead and this works so much better! It’s easier to open the windows, and I still get some light and wind coming in so I don’t get cabin fever from being stuck in this room all day. 
2. Drawing dividers between work and personal life WFH is great (I love it!) but it can get very difficult to draw a line between what’s work and what’s personal when I’m doing my professional, salary-generating work from 10am-6pm AND all my after work stuff (like watching dramas, social media posts, etc) all at the same table and chair. This is when I realised that drawing boundaries is really important to prevent work from creeping into my personal life and setting me on the highway for burnout. Here are some ways in which I’ve attempted to draw that boundary: - Changing the lights! I have a fan light in this room (no other desk lights, unfortunately) - and I use the white light function for work in the day time, and only change to the warm light in the evenings when it’s time to wind down and deal with personal things. - Getting a monitor riser - this has become a default ‘storage space’ for all my personal stuff - I slide everything under the riser when I’m at work so that I’m not distracted by my desktop keyboard or my cute notepad or my camera. All the ‘fun’ stuff gets hidden away and they only appear after work when it’s time to dabble in my hobbies. 
3. Little bits of motivation But of course, this is not a sterile office - and I work in the creative industry so my brain would wither away if I had a super boring desk. I’ve dressed up my work area with things that keep me motivated on tough days - this growing collection of ocean themed postcards from my travels reminds me that I need to work to pay for more trips to go see the ocean LOL. (PRO TIP: use washi tape to stick up your postcards! blu-tack sometimes leaves an oily mark on the wall) 
I also have a cute coaster with the girl with the pearl earring! Fun fact - the face distorts a little when I have a transparent glass of water on it and that amuses me greatly HAHA. And of course there's always random little 'comforts' that help to get me through the workday without being overly distracting - scented candles, hand cream and a good set of earphones for multi-tasking with Spotify :) 
BUT of course there are also parts of this WFH set-up that are imperfect - I haven’t really got a solid cable management system in place. I’m currently using this extension thingy that has individual switches... BUT as you can tell from the one dangly wire in the back, I need to think of a better way to keep my cables tidy, while still allowing some flexibility in movement for my standing desk to go up and down. 
I also do not have a designated spot to hold my work bag and files so they are just sitting sadly in a corner most of the time - perhaps a cabinet or something to hold them would be nice! Let me know if you have any recommendations for these things ;)
21 September
