What does the translator's ideal home office look like?

Ideal home office: Most translators work from home.

What is more, it is not online freelance translators who work from their home office, staff translators now also often work from their own home. So where should the ideal home office be placed in the house and what should it contain?

While home offices come in all shapes and sizes, most importantly your home workplace needs to be as efficient and comfortable as possible. The two critical considerations are: where will I situate my home office and how will I equip it? Your aim is creating a separate, comfortable, efficient and ergonomically sound working environment.

 

Separating home and work space

There are translators who work at the kitchen table. In an ideal world, though, the home worker should have a space away from other members of the household and external disturbances. Children barging in repeatedly, neighbours knocking on the door for a cup of tea and a lengthy chat or salesmen and other inconvenient visitors are not likely to contribute to work efficiency.

Therefore, for most translators, a separate room in a “remote” part of the house or even at the bottom of the garden is the ideal home office. It will need to have enough space for at least one laptop, some filing systems, printer, printing paper, stationery and anything else you will need on a daily basis and don’t want to have to tidy away at the end of every day. An ergonomic office chair is also a better option for working from home than a dining chair!

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Professionally qualified German translator into English and English into German, offering first class translation services for commercial, industrial, governmental and private clients.

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