Does your home office desk meet your needs?
Factoid: the amount of information crossing your desk has increased by 600%, while the size of the average desk has decreased by 37%.
What I too often see in stores and catalogues for home office desks are:
- “Computer desks” – furniture that is just big enough to hold a monitor, keyboard and PCU, period. No room for the papers you work with. “Computer desks” are storage units by another name.
- Writing desks – petite tables that are designed when people worked with parchment and quill pens.
- Student desks – a small work surface and two tiny drawers on the side. Unchanged from the days when you did homework with a textbook and a notebook, period.
- Massive executive office units – huge desks and desk “returns” with tall book cases. All of it too big for most home offices, costing thousands of dollars and not designed for the realities of modern technology.
If you have the space for it I encourage you to have the largest work surface that will fit your space and your needs. This doesn’t have to be a fancy desk. If your budget is tight or you want to put your money into your business, not your furniture, it can be as simple as two two-drawer files, a flat door or equivalent on top as a work surface and an adjustable keyboard tray.
Other ways to expand your work surface within a small workspace will be explored in future blogs.
How big is your desktop and how do you make the most of it? Submit a comment and let us know.
Learn more about desks and desk set-ups in The Smarter Home Office
