I was hanging out doing some work the other day, and I looked down at my desk and remembered my first custom at the home office desk setup I had built in my bedroom while living with my parents a few years ago. I started asking myself the question: Why don’t more people kill two birds with one stone and have their home office in their bedroom like I had before?
It just seemed like such an obvious solution to me, but I felt like a bit more research was in order. After doing some digging, I found that the answer wasn’t as intuitive as I was led to believe. So, to be totally ambiguous and upset my readers further… I will state that it really DEPENDS on your situation to decide whether a home office in the bedroom is a good idea for you or not. There are a few major conflicting viewpoints I will note below that justify my open-ended answer.
Why would you want to have your home office in your bedroom?
The first thing that should be coming to mind is space!
A lack of space in your home/apartment would drive you to possibly wanting a home office setup in your bedroom. Below are 5 reasons you may consider when deciding if having a home office in your bedroom is the best option for you:
- Maybe you have a baby on the way like I do at the moment and are thinking about being more efficient with your space.
- You might have had to or will have to live at home with your parents if you are one out of two Americans that are identified as a millennial or Gen-Z “er” according to Knoema.
- Maybe you are taking care of your grandparents and are currently utilizing the spare bedroom in your house or apartment. Since 21% of the US population is a baby boomer (also cited in the above link) it is highly likely that could become your reality at least at some point.
- If you are trying to save on your housing costs that have increased 370% relative US Median household income growth, a thought could be to downsize your square footage.
- You may just feel that strategically you will be more efficient working from your bedroom.
Why wouldn’t you want to have your home office in your bedroom?
Space is just as relevant regarding why you wouldn’t want to take this strategy on! Here are 4 supporting reasons:
- Most people would say “Well I don’t have a lot of space in my room.” While this might entirely be true, there are more than enough ways to make the most out what square footage you do have!
- “I have plenty of space for a home office in a dedicated area.” Could also be a defensible stance as most people have more space than necessary. If you want to know how much space you should have for you and your family give this well written article a quick read.
- Your significant other might not be on the same page as you regarding whether or not a home office is a good idea in your bedroom. I don’t have any scholarly proof of this, but I would say most WOULDN’T approve of your office taking up some of your precious intimate space away from the busyness of the world. I know that my fiancé looked at me like I was a psychopath when I mentioned that I had a home office in my bedroom a few years ago! So, 1 for 1 on shooting down that idea thus far!
- Science has proven that working from your bed specifically has a number of negative impacts on your work efficiency, ability to separate work from relaxing, and worsening your sleep. Our friends at FastCompany.com can walk you through some of those reasonings. Now I know that I stated specifically IN bed, and that was for good reason. Having your bed right next to your Home office in your bedroom WILL be too tempting at some point in time… Who are we kidding! It’s going to happen a lot!
What you use your home office for will greatly impact whether a home office in your bedroom is feasible.
A home office is not always some static image of a desk with standard office equipment such as books, a computer, and a collection of writing utensils. Many people utilize their home office as a productive supplement to their standard desk at work due to that they either aren’t allowed to alter their work environment or it wouldn’t be feasible to have all of their equipment there.
Here are some examples of different types of careers/lifestyles that warrant a nontraditional home office setup:
- Artists
- Graphic designers
- Photographers
- Small Business owners
- Realtors
- Analysts
- Gamers
- Musicians and Recording Artists
- Minimalists
- Day Traders
- Startups
- Website designers
- Those that need to be active while working
- Those that work from home
- Writers
- The messy types
- The organization freaks
- Personal trainers
And more!
As you probably deduced while reading this list some of the above would be difficult to create an ideal working environment. The more artistic in nature the profession/lifestyle is the more space and thought needs to be put into the design. Can you imagine how your family and friends would feel if your home sound studio wasn’t soundproofed!
How can you tell that your home office space in your bedroom is helping your productivity?
If you are confident enough to decide that having your home office in your bedroom is a value added you need to make sure your theory is right. Otherwise you’ll just spend your time, energy, and money making yourself less efficient. We don’t want that!
So make a makeshift workspace in your bedroom. Don’t spend thousands on monitors, desks, etc yet! Make your bedroom home office as cheaply and quickly as you can for now, and start getting to work.
Start keeping track of your results. Take notes, or if your a data nerd like me an excel spreadsheet that tracks your time and project completions. Easy enough right!?
If you become more efficient that’s great! Start making a list of what you’ll need for your new bedroom home office!
If not…
If your bedroom home office isn’t working out, what can you do?
Well back to the drawing board, and at least you still have a bathroom to try! Just Joking..! Maybe…
There are other options for you that I will be writing on as well, such as:
- The corner of a living room
- The Kitchen
- A spare bedroom
- The garage
- A shed
- Your car
- The basement
- Home Entryway
- Your attic or loft
- Mobile office setups
- And of course Office/Den
In summary:
You might want a home office or not! It depends a lot on your personality, environment, family, occupation/lifestyle, available space, and of course the results of your productivity experiment that you should complete before ever fully committing to the concept!
Best regards and stay Hustling!
-Jake