Keeping On Top Of A Home Office: 6 Top Tips For Managing Your Data And Workspace
Working from home and staying on top of the demands of a busy home office can be difficult sometimes. It requires a lot of self-discipline and means it is up to you to manage and protect important data that you generate while you work. With the help of this guide, you should be able to begin some better business practices and manage your data and your time more effectively.
Manage Your Data
Every document and file can become crucial even if you think the data it contains is worthless. All these files soon start pushing your storage to its limits, and cloud storage solutions come with added costs. It is up to you and you alone to manage this problem and deal with your data.
Start conducting regular data management with helpful tools like SmallPDF’s PDF compressor. This simple and lightweight program can compress PDFs down to less than a tenth of their size, making them much more manageable and freeing up room on your hard drives and cloud servers. By regularly compressing your files, especially if they are for long term storage, you can do more without having to invest in new hardware.
Back Yourself Up
Not enough people are regularly backing up their data. This can lead to all sorts of problems and even cause financial losses. Part of your regular data management schedule needs to include both compression and backups. Compressing your data first reduces the number of gigabytes that need to be backed up and stored. This streamlines the process and reduces the level of storage you need.
Your backup data should be stored in at least two places too. Having a complete backup of all your documents on the PC or laptop you use makes a lot of sense on the surface. You have easy access to it if needed and you can easily use it to replace corrupted files on your computer. What if your computer or hard drive fails? Your backup is trapped, and your business grinds to a halt. Store backups on removable media like USB drives as well as on a cloud service to keep yourself covered if the worst happens.
Define Your Boundaries
It is up to you to keep yourself on schedule and hit your targets. Removing distractions and clearing clutter can help to make you a more efficient worker, and spend less time motivating yourself and more time working. Doing this will help you spend more of your work time working, and your free time less stressful.
If you were working in an office you would have a clean and clear workspace, so why should your office at home be any different? Put a couple of non-working hours into rearranging your workspace to make it a better place to work, and find any efficiencies you can. Switching the placement of your desk can yield consistent results, and look around your home for ways to reduce distractions like noise, pets, or personal phone calls.
Make A Tip-Top Desktop
The distractions are not all in your home or your office, they are on your PC or laptop too. Part of your organizational efforts and streamlining should include removing distractions from your computer like games or social media apps. If you use a workstation that is also your personal computer, consider creating a new user profile just for work so that your personal files and apps are ring-fenced from your business duties.
There are programs and browser plug-ins that can help you maintain your work from home discipline. These time saving productivity apps will limit your ability to browse the web or engage with social media, forcing you to stick to the task at hand and keep being productive. Even if you consistently hit your targets and are a productive worker, these programs can help.
Protect Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself
Millions of workers across the world have switched skyscraper offices for a space at home and nefarious actors on the internet have taken note. Businesses used to have to spend big bucks to protect their data, especially sensitive consumer data, from online thieves. Now it is up to you.
Your PC or laptop needs some top tier protection to prevent your data from being stolen, or worse being held for ransom. If you are an entrepreneur you are not immune to these thieves either. Even small businesses can be targeted, and one bad data breach can bring your business to a standstill and destroy your reputation with your customers. Take data security as seriously as data storage and start regularly scanning your computer and protecting it with high end and high value security software.
Go Green
Your workspace should be a pleasant place to be. You are going to spend a lot of your time there during your working week, and within reason, you can give it any kind of decor you want. Adding plants to a space has been proven to give people a productivity boost. They increase the oxygen levels of a room and cleanse the air of odors. Give yourself a new office friend or two by adding plants to your space.
Become more energy conscious too. Working from home means that the cost of lighting and power is on you and no one else. Find ways to reduce your energy consumption. This will also reduce your expenses, so think of it like a pay rise. The less you spend on energy the more value you get from your wages, once you account for your costs.
Working from home comes with plenty of pluses, and the positive impact it can have on your quality of life is huge. Home offices come with a lot of responsibilities attached. It is up to you and no one else to take them on and make your workspace efficient and productive. Start managing your data more regularly and effectively, protect yourself when working online, and make sure your home office is a productive space as well as a pleasant one.
