Carry on work at home

It looks like we had better do something about our work place at home. Everything points to we will be continuing working from home.

National health organisations strongly suggest employers to promote the possibility to working from home. In some countries, it’s even made compulsory when possible. Looking at recent studies in Scandinavia*, as many as every other person already did so in 2021 and they intend to continue so in 2022. To many, it’s not even a necessary evil. They want to work at home.

So how are we doing at our home work places? The same studies give that almost half of everybody that are working from home, have adjusted their work places ergonomically. But they also give that many are working at the kitchen table or even worse, on the sofa. Not optimal. Consequently, many experience poor physical health.

We have a responsibility to take reasonable care of ourselves. If we don’t have the space, we will have to make the best of what there are. So, what can be done? A good chair and table will take us a long way. But as we are experts on storage solutions, we have a few more ideas:

• Why not separating the work place from the rest of your home with a set of sliding doors? You get an isolated space while working and perhaps more importantly, a possibility to close the shop while off work.
• Make good use of your walls. Put up shelves, but not just any shelves. The best ones are not very deep. Trust us on this, the deeper they are, the greater the mess. If you can combine the shelves with some baskets or drawers that you can pull out, even better.
• Finally, draw the curtain. If you have a lot on your walls, you might want to cover up your orderliness a bit. Let us instead admire a beautiful fabric and be astounded by the improved acoustic effect this simple measure makes.

These are just suggestions. There are probably many other things you can do to carry on work at home. Take care of yourselves.

* The studies:
A study carried out by Kantar Sifo and covering a total of 1280 respondents from Sweden, aged 18-65. It was commissioned by Elfa and carried out in November 25 - December 1, 2021.
A study carried out by YouGov and covering a total of 1007 respondents from Norway, all aged over 18. It was commissioned by Elfa and carried out in December 8 - 13, 2021.