Why Rent an Office?
If you work from home, chances are you still feel like renting an office might be a good idea. Remote work does have its perks, like less commuting and having all the amenities that your home provides, but there are still plenty of reasons to consider renting an office even if your type of work doesn’t require it.
Needing to Get Out of the House
At VentureSpace, the most common reason we hear from people looking for an office is that they just needed to get out of the house.
Working from home sounds great in theory, but if you live with family, friends, or pets, you might appreciate stepping away from the activity of a busy home so you can focus on work. Even if you live by yourself, it’s easy to feel cooped up after spending most of your day and night in the same place.
Renting an office means having access to an environment focused on enabling our work life. When you go to an office, you step away from the chores and home tasks that might distract you throughout the day. You’re putting all of those distractions on a shelf for the day so you can focus on your work as effectively as possible.
More Space, More Convenience
If you rent a single office, you’ll also gain space that might be hard to find at home. Even if you have an office at home, there’s a good chance you have non-work related clutter in there as well. This is especially likely if you live with other people.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a space that was only filled with stuff to help you stay productive? Instead of dealing with overflow items from roommates or family members, or a pile of items that just doesn’t have a place to go, renting an office will give you room to build an environment that empowers your workflow rather than detract from it.
Taxes
If you work from home, you probably already know that the square footage of your office could be a tax write-off. We strongly encourage you to consult with a CPA to understand what you can and cannot write off since the details of whether or not your home office is eligible can become difficult to follow.
If you use your home office for anything other than work, you could be complicating things by making the purpose of that square footage unclear. When you rent a single office in your area, you’re paying for a space that is entirely focused on your work life, which tends to make things more clear when it’s time to file taxes.
Easier to Stay Organized Between Work and Not-Work
Having a space away from home that is focused on your work life can make personal and professional organization easier. With a home office, it’s easy to have personal life literally spilling into your office, and the same is true for business items flowing into the rest of your home.
While working from home does grant a lot of flexibility, it’s important to consider the organizational benefits of having an office to go to. You can use the commute and separation of professional and personal spaces to your advantage by keeping your work assets, files, tools, and resources in one place that won’t become crowded with items from your personal life.
Mindset Shift
Another benefit to having an office away from home is the shift in mindset that comes from getting dressed, walking out the door, and going into work. If you work remotely, this shift is more difficult to recreate. Our brain knows when we’re still at home, and it knows that our home is a place to relax, sleep, cook, complete chores, watch TV, unwind, and have fun.
Our brain also knows that going into work means staying productive. When we stay at home for work and non-work time, it might be more difficult for our brain to discern between working hours and non-working hours. If you find yourself not feeling as productive during the day, or perhaps being too productive after hours when you’d rather be relaxing, you might benefit from separating the space you use for work from the space you use for relaxing and having fun.
Even the process of changing our clothes will help shift our mindset. Remote workers can easily stay in their pajamas to begin their day of work, and for some that might be okay, but for the rest of us there is a noticeable difference in our alertness and productivity when we take steps to differentiate our home life from our work life.
With all this in mind, it’s obvious why so many remote workers still wind up finding an office to commute to. Fortunately, our flexibility in choosing where that office is located creates an opportunity to find a coworking space that provides more convenience than leasing an office by yourself.
