Do you hate clutter, or are you on a budget? Some of us love collecting objects, which then collect dust. Some of us like to spend as least time as possible dusting. Some of us need to save money in order to pay off student loans and can’t spend much on setting up the old home office, because setting up a home office will save us money, and if we spend too much on office equipment, it becomes a catch-22 situation.
I’ve dug some tips out from under my own pile of dust to help you set up a fantastic minimalist office which would make any architect, or your own mother, proud.
- Go wireless for your printer needs, now there is so little difference in price between wireless and wired models you would be a fool not to. That’s the first piece of advice I can offer. In this instance you can put the cart before the horse and get yourself one of those wireless all-in-one printer/scanner/copier machines. There are also great bargains out there on laser units that use black toner only, and which work beautifully.
- Set up a nice home network and avoid even more wires and cables. You can sit in the living room, watching your 3D Internet-enabled TV, while getting the scores from the latest games on your laptop or iPad 2, and then printing a sheet or two out in your home office, on your spiffy new networked and wireless all-in-one printer/scanner/copier machine. See how it ties together? Less clutter and less expense. Just make sure your WiFi router is properly secured.
- If you simply must have some storage, then attach a few clean shelves to the wall above or behind your desk. Get the kind that are “floating” so there’s no ugly brackets sticking out. They serve no value in a minimalist’s office. Typically you will be looking for a modern home office desk with perhaps one or two storage drawers in it, which could accommodate a few file folders, if you are tight on space a small corner computer desk is a good choice if you have a bit more room to play with then an L-shaped office desk might make more sense. To be truly minimalist and higher tech, store your files on your computer. That’s where the scanner part of your all-in-one comes in handy. You can also purchase some good OCR software and cram even War & Peace onto your hard drive.
- Computer wise, you can certainly ditch that old monitor which takes up all of the desk space you have, and get a nice all-in-one iMac (there are affordable Macs out there also), or a flat monitor with the PC hidden either under, or in, your desk. A wireless keyboard and wireless optical mouse are essentials in any minimalist’s office. Do make sure you get enough RAM and hard drive space in your new computer. They are well-equipped these days.
- Finally, treat yourself to an ergonomically-designed and comfortable office chair. There are some new designs which can operate by remote control. In the least, they have high-tech fabrics available which can also cool you, or heat you up. Getting a renewable and very “green” flooring or carpet or rug onto your minimalist office floor may not be high tech to look at it, but many parts of our modern technology were used to manufacture a durable, renewable resourced, and attractive surface.
One final touch for your minimalist office — a simple and attractive live plant always adds a bit of nature to even the most high-tech and minimalist space. It can also give you someone to talk to or throw your ideas around with. Plants are very low key and fit right in with the minimalist office.
Over to you guys. What other types of technology do you use for your minimalist home office? Any other space or money saving tips or pieces of technology that you can suggest on creating a minimalist office space? Please share your thoughts.
This is a guest post by Lloyd Burrell of Office Desk Reviews. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.
Right guys. The minimalist office for me is more about substance than form. Sure it’s nice to have the latest Mac sat proudly in the middle of your solid oak executive desk. But will this really make you work more efficiently? and is it the best use of your (often limited) resources? Don’t think so.
For starters like me, I think the appearance or style of the computer is typically not important for a business, while the power and speed can be critical. Computer wise as you’ve said.
@kira – i agree. people shouldn’t make the style and appearance the priority when choosing a computer but rather focus on the hardware specs and make sure that it’s capable of handling the work you’ll be doing with it.
This is a very timely post sir. My room is currently undergoing renovation and I plan to use a third of it to be like an office. Nice Read
@John – glad to hear that and good to know this article gave you some ideas/inspiration for your home office. :)