Working from Home
Working from Home
The universe works in mysterious ways - well for us anyway. Late last year, we found ourselves questioning whether we needed a Design Studio. Since the beginning we have always had a showroom or studio, we never considered that you could actually build a team and grow, without having a physical space to work from. In the early days, having a physical presence and place to showcase our work felt more professional however in this day and age, it’s not an expectation and designers are coming up with savvy ways to run professional design businesses from home.
When we decided to make a lifestyle change and move from the city to the beach, some of our team wanted to stay with us but didn’t want to travel. So we created new roles within the business with some opting to move from full time to casual or part-time. With our team working remotely and in most cases, more productively - we kept coming back to the question of whether we needed a studio at all. At the start of this year, what felt divinely timed, our office building was sold giving us the option to vacate our lease earlier than we had anticipated. We thought this was the perfect opportunity to reduce our overheads and work smarter.
Over the past few years we have been traveling a lot more for interstate projects, and now being by the beach, we commute to the city once a week for clients. We’ve come up with new ways to present our design schemes and mobilize the way we do things. This has proven to be a great way of presenting as clients are able to visualise the schemes in the comfort of their own homes.
Working from home has allowed us flexibility, we have reduced our overheads (a huge relief in the CO-VID19 crisis right now!) and we are able to choose what projects we want to take on. The team is more focused and deadline-driven and we now out-source or contract out tasks on an as-need basis.
Working with a team virtually, and creating systems that allow you to communicate clearly has been an element that has taken time to get right. It was important to us that we were able to still create an environment that allowed us to be creative, timelines for everyone to share, goal setting and task allocating for productivity, and of course, a workspace that still reflects our style and brand. We were not ready to give up a beautiful space just yet, and are excited to work on our new office concept.
With so many of us choosing to work from home, productivity has never been so important, so getting organised and creating the right workspace is essential for a thriving business. In this post on the VH Edit, we share our top tips for getting your home office productive and creative.
01. Dedicate a Workspace
Working from home means you need to create a dedicated space to work. It’s important for your mindset to separate where you relax and unwind, to where you physically work - plus you need to be able to shut the door so your family members respect that you are actually working and they don’t interrupt you (in a perfect world).
02. Organise your Space
Good business practices are essential for any successful business. Creating good habits right from the start will allow you to focus on client work, rather than wasting precious time sorting through fabric swatches and paperwork scattered all over your desk. If you finish each day filing away paperwork, putting back samples in the right baskets, creating folders on your computer for loose files on your desktop and keeping on top of your inbox will not only make you feel on top of your workload, but it allows you the space for creative thinking. Going from a studio the size of a house, to a smaller space gave us the opportunity to cull, or you could say it was a major Spring-clean! Now we just have the essentials, and store all of our samples and swatches in our bookcase. We work mainly with swatches now and just borrow fabric books when we need them, the same goes for building samples which take up the most space. Back when we had the bigger studio, we had a rule that desks needed to be cleaned and tidied at the end of each day. We always start the day with a fresh jug of lemon water and a tidy desk. Trust me, this always makes us start the day on the right foot, and helps avoid overwhelm.
03. Decorate your Home Office
I couldn’t imagine working from home without making the space beautiful that reflects our style and brand. It really doesn’t matter what size room you have, aim to make the space feel creative and inviting to work from. We have always a put a lot of emphasis in creating a workspace filled with natural light - our new space will have lots of white and earthy textures like seagrass walls and natural fibers, planked walls and shutters, greenery and wicker baskets to create the perfect backdrop when working with colour in fabrics and interior schemes. Below are a few items we have selected to help inspire your home office, ultimately the goal is to have a space that reflects and inspires you.
In our studio, we recovered a James Stewart linen office chair with a designer fabric and custom-built joinery to suit our office space or you could look at a ready-made cabinet from Xavier Furniture and custom paint and add your own hardware. Have you seen the new white and natural raffia range of office stationery you can source at Officeworks? We can’t get enough of it!
04. Schedule your Day
It’s important to schedule your day the night before, I always find if I write a list before I finish up for the day it allows me to focus and get more done first up in the morning. I select only a handful of tasks, I avoid long lengthy lists, instead, I prioritise what’s most important and what adds the most value to my workday. Working from home allows you to choose how you spend your work time in a way that’s productive for you. When we plan our day, with a goal to finish by 3pm, we are so much more productive in getting things done and staying focused.
05. BecomeTech Savvy
One of the changes we made prior to moving our studio home, was allowing our team the option to work virtually, so it was important we created a platform for everyone to communicate for brainstorming sessions, strategy meetings, and client updates. We share more about how we do this, in VH Design Co. Today more than ever we need to rethink the way we do business. I never thought the day would come that I would be walking virtually through our projects, it’s an entirely new experience but one we are embracing to keep our business thriving during the highs and lows of life.
06. Start your Day Right
When working from home I knew it would be important to start the day right. It can feel isolating (even when not in isolation) to stay motivated and on track. Practicing good habits from the start means, we start our workday around the same time every day, we get dressed for work every day - sure we still wear comfortable leisurewear but our hair is done, it’s just a great way to mentally prepare for the day. We may then go out and grab a coffee from our local barista which in a way makes you feel like you’re arriving to work to start your day. Lazing around in your PJ’s or working from your sofa is not a good idea! Treat every day as if you are going into the office, keeping your mindset on track is key.
We hope you enjoyed this post on working from home, we LOVE hearing your feedback, comments, and emails so please let us know how you are working from home and any topics you would love to hear about.
Stay safe & here’s to a productive week ahead!
Judy & Jess