Best way of having a comfortable work from home space.

dekaspace1

Been back at work 2 months, I have a ok sized bedroom which I use but a lot of furniture, I use my bedroom tv as a monitor and use works laptop for emails and a small old tv for recreational/relaxation stuff like a Youtube video (this is to help my MH whilst working)

I have pros and cons on having it here, or in living room.

The main pros is more that its much easier to connect each device together and have laptop on a old food trolley and put it in corner of room beside tv/monitor at end of shift and its tidy and hides wires so I don't have to unplug things.

Negatives is that I have a worse phone signal in there (use a mobile phone to accept incoming calls as its mostly call centre work) so sometimes customers can't hear me and have missed a few calls, and its not as relaxing as my living room.

The cons of the living room though is more a clutter of wires and would have to unplug laptop from my living room monitor, and unplug the laptop and put it in a small gap or in bedroom anyway to make it tidy.

A pro besides what I have mentioned is I have a little more room to spread out, and can multi monitor work things as I have a gamers setup, 2 large monitors and a tv in living room and I used to have 2 monitors and a laptop screen in the office, one for emails (laptop) one for the on call information that I can check or phone someone else, and third for the actual programs I use to type information in and therefore I don't have to go back and forth.

Living room also has much more and natural light.

Savvy_Sue

It doesn't sound as if it's too much work to make the living room tidy, and given all you've said I'd use that 'tidying' time as the equivalent of your journey home when you used to travel to work: you've switched off, and you're now in transition to your own time. 

Especially as you've missed calls when you've been working in your bedroom. 

If it was a spare bedroom I might think differently, but working in your only bedroom doesn't sound great if it can be avoided. 

Slinky

Would getting a signal booster for your mobile help?

Takmon

Slinky said:

Would getting a signal booster for your mobile help?

Mobile signal boosters are illegal to use in the UK without the proper licensing. 

Sandtree

Takmon said:

Slinky said:

Would getting a signal booster for your mobile help?

Mobile signal boosters are illegal to use in the UK without the proper licensing. 

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/advice/improving-indoor-coverage

Seems no one told the UK regulator as they recommend buying boosters from your network in the above link (though specifically those ones not random things of Amazon)

Plenty of other advice in the article for the OP... these days many phones have native support for wifi calling so if your wifi is good enough in the bedroom maybe look into that.

Takmon

Sandtree said:

Takmon said:

Slinky said:

Would getting a signal booster for your mobile help?

Mobile signal boosters are illegal to use in the UK without the proper licensing. 

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/advice/improving-indoor-coverage

Seems no one told the UK regulator as they recommend buying boosters from your network in the above link (though specifically those ones not random things of Amazon)

Plenty of other advice in the article for the OP... these days many phones have native support for wifi calling so if your wifi is good enough in the bedroom maybe look into that.

In that article when they say "signal booster" they are actually referring to a femtocell because they talk of devices that connect to the internet and generate their own signal and don't "boost" and existing signal. Unfortunately it seems to be such a common mistake now that people think of them a "signal boosters".

But that article does say they have relaxed the rules on signal repeaters which i was unaware of until now.

getmore4less

WiFi calling seems to solve my signal problems with my mobile network. 

Marcon

Could you forward your mobile to your landline, to ensure you hear the calls coming in? Or have your mobile in your pocket...

getmore4less

I would look at setting up the gaming station setup for work or game time.

Extra screens if needed. 

If you have restrictions on what you can connect to work stuff look at VM,s remote desktops and VPN connections to avoid moving cables

Savvy_Sue

Mickey666 said:

I worked a lot from home, even before this pandemic, heck even before the internet was a widespread thing.  I've always converted a spare bedroom into a 'home office', even had a second telephone line and fax machine dedicated to work for a lot of the time, which was paid for by my employer.  I appreciate this is not always possible but the separation of work and home spaces really helps to avoid all the work-life balance issues that can arise from working from home.

Yes, if the OP had the option of a spare bedroom, that would be great. But I'd try to keep work out of the bedroom, if I could. 

Again, not an ideal solution, but I heard on the radio today of a cafe which had set aside one of its spaces for rent-a-desk: I think they were charging £20 for 3 hours, to include lunch and as much tea / coffee as you could drink. 

Sandtree

Takmon said:
Unfortunately it seems to be such a common mistake now that people think of them a "signal boosters".

When its what the regulator calls them, at least to the public, its difficult to really call it a "mistake".

There does seem to be an increasing propensity for both creating simplified marketing names for products and that multiple different products get given the same name. It does lead to some frustrating conversations such as a recent argument over the illegality of electric scooters when it turned out one person was basically referring to an electric moped (which is a scooter if not speed limited etc) and the other the motorised version of the kids toy.