Freelance UK:
Working from home - office space
When you make the decision to work from home, one thing that you must give serious consideration is your working space. In any permanent role you will have almost everything provided for you, a computer to work on, the software required to complete your job and hopefully a quiet, calm environment to complete your work.
When you take the step to work as a freelancer you will need to provide all of this yourself. We will look at computing requirements in later articles – today’s article focuses only on the space you will need to provide and some things to think about when preparing your home office space.
One of the main requirements is to get a space that you can set aside where you will not have the interruptions of everyday life. If you have a family or live with others then this can be a major hurdle. Partners may consider your new role as being a great opportunity to get you to do extra work around the house or take part in more extra curricular activities! Make it clear what your ‘office’ hours are and try and get others in your house to respect this to maximize your productivity while at home.
Some freelancers have taken the opportunity of homeworking to make their house spotless or find it hard not to tune into daytime TV to catch up with their favourite programs. Our suggestion, where possible, is to set aside space in a room that does not have a TV and if you are addicted to daytime TV then learn how to program your video recorder to record your programs and watch them outside of your designated working hours.
It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you can take an hour or two out during the day and catch up with work at a later time as your office is so close at hand but this can lead to late nights and therefore later starts due to tiredness – once you fall into this trap it can be hard to escape so set your working hours and stick to them! You will be a lot happier and healthier by sticking to a set regime.
Many freelancers feel that working from a laptop in the front room is not a problem but due to the distractions and the fact that laptop keyboards are fiddly and the posture used while typing at a laptop are not good for you we really would recommend finding desk space for a desktop computer. Not to mention that desktop PCs are less likely to go walkabouts and are easier to fix should a component fail meaning less downtime should things go wrong.
Posture is something that you really do need to consider. As a freelancer you will not be paid for time off work for a bad back or RSI should your working posture be bad so make sure you are comfy at your computer, your desk should be deep enough so that your forearms can rest on the desk in front of your keyboard and your chair is at a height so that your back is straight and your knees bend so your thighs and lower legs are at right angles and your feet are flat on the floor. If your desk is a little too high then invest in a foot rest – back problems are best avoided at all costs!
While on this subject, make sure that you take regular breaks away from your desk. If you are a programmer or writer of some kind then it is easy to get into the flow of work and many hours can pass with you in the same position. If this sounds like you set an alarm for 2 hours maximum and when the time is up get up from your desk and have some time away, make a coffee or hang out some washing. Persistent computer use can lead to deep vein thrombosis, usually attributed to long haul flights, but this ailment has cropped up fairly frequently with heavy computer users.
With your desk space sorted make sure you have room for a fair amount of filing space. This area of working for yourself is often overlooked but bear in mind that you will need to keep records of all invoices and receipts plus accounts for 6 years (HMRC can ask to see records going back that far), this plus other paper work such as details of insurance you may take out, details of software purchases and licences as well as trade books and magazines that you may purchase.
On the tax front, your accountant can also advise you on claiming for the use of your home. They will be able to advise you which household running costs you can include for this purpose. This is a confusing and sometimes complicated area of tax and running a company, the services of a good accountant can often earn their keep in helping advise with these issues.
