Companies across the country are embracing remote work. They are giving their employees the freedom to skip their morning commutes and conduct all of their tasks from their laptops at home.
Some companies have opted for a hybrid work schedule, where the week is divided between in-office and remote work. This allows employees to get the benefits of gathering with their coworkers for important meetings and collaborative sessions, but only when necessary.
While remote work is gaining traction, there is one major obstacle for employees that want to jump into this work style. What is that obstacle? They don’t have a spare room in their home to convert into a personal office.
This obstacle isn’t insurmountable. You can still create a usable workspace, even without a spare room. These are three alternatives that you should consider.
1. The Cloffice
If you don’t have any spare rooms to convert into a personal office at home, you could try to put together a cloffice. A “cloffice” is a closet office.
Once you remove the items and some of the shelving from a simple storage closet, you should be able to fit all of the essential elements of a standard office cubicle in there. You can mount a desk surface across the closet, where you can rest your lightweight equipment, like your laptop, computer monitor, keyboard and mouse. You can tuck in an office chair below the mounted desk. Keep a floating shelf well above the desk so that you can organize work supplies and documents nearby.
The only issue that you may have with creating a cloffice is access to electricity. If your closet already has an electrical outlet in there, that’s perfect. You can use it to power your task lighting, charge your computer equipment and run any other electronics while you work. If you don’t have an outlet there, you may want to hire an electrician to add one.
2. The Backyard Office
You may not have enough room inside your house to create a personal office, but what about outside of it? If you have a lot of yard space that you haven’t put to good use, you could purchase a shipping container for sale and convert it into a functional remote office. You won’t have to commute very far to get to work. You’ll just have to walk a few steps into your yard.
How can you put together a shipping container office? First, you’ll want to purchase a top-quality shipping container from a reliable provider. Then, you should prepare the foundation to make sure the space is flat, smooth and stable. Get the container delivered and start making modifications, adding an entrance door, windows, wall insulation and electric connections. Soon enough, your container will be ready to move into.
3. The Coworking Space
If you don’t have enough space inside and outside of your home, don’t worry—there is still a solution out there. You could join a coworking space in your local area. Coworking spaces provide their members with a comfortable work environment to conduct their tasks and even a place to network with like-minded individuals.
Joining a coworking space is an ideal option when your company office is too far of a commute for you to manage on a regular basis. It is also a good option for freelancers and contract workers that don’t have a corporate office to go to.
You can still work remotely, even when you don’t have a regular home office. Try one of these alternatives.
