Let’s go from this...
Sir! Oh boy! Oh my goodness!
..to this!
Ah, so much better.
This is DIY in 5.
Hello everyone, I’m Trisha Hershberger and welcome to DIY in 5 from home edition!
While many of us are self-isolating and doing what we can to keep our loved ones safe and
healthy, lots of us are finding ourselves in a work from home situation.
[kid yelling]
Later, sweet pea, mommy is working!
It can feel... a little overwhelming to say the least.
And, now while I cannot help you with childcare, remembering to shower or put on pants,
what I can help you with is setting up a dedicated office space to maximize both productivity
and sanity while working from home.
So what’s that space look like?
Most of us are not lucky enough to have a dedicated home office room where we live.
If you already have that, congrats, you can skip 95% of this video!
But for the rest of us, creating a dedicated space with a table, chair and some type of
makeshift workstation will go a long way.
Brian from our Kingston team suggested grabbing a small kids table used for Legos, puzzles
or holiday parties and repurposing it as a desk.
Now, I have been known to section off a part of my dining table or place a flat surface
horizontal between two shelves to make a desk, provided it can handle
what you plan to put on top of it and has room for your legs underneath.
Awesome!
You’ll also want to pull up a chair, preferably with a back on it.
Long days on a stool will start to take a toll on your posture for sure.
Once you’ve got your space figured out, it’s time to look at your workstation.
If you have a laptop that you normally use for work, you are off to a great start.
A few extra peripherals can really make that laptop experience
feel more like a desktop experience for prolonged work sessions.
If you have any old or extra peripherals lying around, like a mouse or keyboard, break those out!
Most desktops come with a standard keyboard and mouse that can get stored in closets
in favor of specialized gaming, wireless or ergonomic options.
Once you are using a standard sized keyboard and a mouse again instead of a trackpad and
laptop keyboard, you’ll never look at the standard keyboard/mouse the same way again.
Now, for extra credit, if you have an old, small TV or monitor laying around
anywhere in your home, chances are good you can use that to make a two monitor setup.
Check the connectivity options and search the house or online retailers for adapters if need be.
Anyone who’s ever gone from 1 to 2 monitors can vouch for how wonderful this upgrade is,
so if you can do that at home, you’re in good shape.
And, for extra-extra credit, you might want to consider getting a Laptop Docking station
like the Plugable USB 3.0 Universal Docking Station.
It has Dual Video HDMI & DVI/VGA outs, Gigabit Ethernet, Audio and 6 usb ports so that all
your peripherals connect to the docking station and the docking station connects to your laptop
via one USB 3.0 cable.
This way if you need to take your laptop to another part of the house, it’s much easier
to disconnect and reconnect without re-setting up your workstation each time.
Next let’s talk video conferencing, should your job require that.
Again, if you have a laptop, you already have a built-in webcam and mic that will work for
a variety of free video conferencing platforms like Zoom or Skype or Bluejeans.
And if you are working off a home desktop, you may need to invest in a cheap webcam like
the Logitech C920, a staple for years and my personal favorite.
It’s got up to 1080p video and has dual mics so your audio is cooked right in.
If you have a job that discusses more sensitive subject matter that you don’t want your
family to overhear, or you don’t want your coworkers to overhear your family or roommates,
see if you can find a headset somewhere.
While a nice big cushy one like the HyperX Cloud will help keep out the noise around you,
even a set of earbuds that came with an older phone will get the job done and as
a bonus, may even have a built in mic with better audio quality
than what’s onboard your laptop or webcam.
Another thing to consider if you do a lot of video conferencing is what your background is,
not just for aesthetic reasons but because I’ve personally seen more than a few half-naked
family members who were just getting ready for the day unaware that
cameras were broadcasting their morning routine.
Now, if your camera does look into sensitive areas, consider putting up a divider, curtain
or even using a software background removal tool.
Zoom offers Virtual Background solutions and Skype has a toggle to blur the background
which better than nothing.
XSplit also offers a background software removal tool called VCam
that can be used with any video conferencing solution.
And as a bonus for many of these, you can replace your background
with any image you want: the beach, space, the shire - anything!
Lastly, I’ll mention security.
If your work involves sensitive information and your company hasn’t already installed
security software on your device, investing in a VPN
or virtual private network might not be the worst idea.
Working from home isn’t easy, but taking some time to up your space
with the right tools can make it a lot more bearable.
Share your at-home setups using the #workfromhome. A lot of people are using this hashtag
to share cute pictures of their pets which is also a bonus
and make sure to #DIYin5 so that we can see it as well.
Take care everyone, stay safe and we’ll see you next time with more DIY in 5.