I’ve been thinking about whether or not I want a real office. I have a home office now. It’s shared space serving as a second family room/game room with my kids. It’s a fantastic room with a view of the mountains, a comfortable chair, a PC, a mac, and dual monitors. It’s also on the second story and overlooks the front so I can see people coming and going but they can’t see me.
The problem isn’t with the space. It’s that I hardly leave the house.
I do leave the house to taxi the kids around. And sometimes I leave the house to meet with a local client. But for the most part, I spend many hours every day in the same place.
It’s actually a little better than it was. When the kids were small before they started school, that room was used by them much more. As such, I really couldn’t work there. So I set up a desk in the master bedroom. That room is also nice. But that was even worse. When I worked from the master bedroom, I was literally spending 16 hours per day in the same room. No room is that nice.
The other problem with a home office is all the stuff I brought with me when I left my last real office. I boxed everything up and put it in a closet. I assumed that at some point, I would be moving back into another office. But that never happened.
I’m not sure why I keep all that old stuff. It’s mostly tombstones and mementos from completed transactions. Probably because these things remind me of my prior life, I keep them as a reminder of how much my life has changed since then.
But even if I were to get a real office, I don’t think I would display all those items. There’s really no point. They’re not particularly attractive as far as decorations go. And the transactions they memorialized are long-forgotten.
From a financial perspective, I can’t justify spending money on a real office. I don’t need the space and having an office isn’t going to make me any more money.
Plus, if I had a real office, I would feel obligated to go to the office. That means I couldn’t sit around unshowered, unshaven, wearing my torn old jeans writing blog posts without feeling a little uncomfortable.
If I’m looking to get out of the house, it might make more sense to go to a nearby coffee shop and work from there. Even paying $5 for a cup of coffee will still cost less than rent on an office.
I think I’ve answered my own question, but I would be curious to hear from other readers that work from home. Have you ever considered renting a real office somewhere? Why did you decide one way or the other?
