Your office is where you do the work that makes you money. That is a situation where compromise is not desirable. If you are not being as productive as you know you can be, then you need to make some changes in how you work. Some changes are simple. Maybe all you need is a new keyboard to increase your typing proficiency. That is a $100 solution. It would be nice if all of life’s problems could be solved so easily.
Your bigger problem is likely not your keyboard, but something more fundamental: You do not have the right work environment to get the job done properly. The pandemic forced a lot of people to convert their kitchen tables into office space. That is a really bad idea for a lot of reasons, and here are just a few of them.
Bad for Collaborative Work
The five best dining chairs for your kitchen will help make family meals a delight. But they will not do anything for a collaborative workspace. Your table is likely not big enough for all the people you will need to accommodate. The chairs will be uncomfortable for long sessions. The table will not be the right height. You will need a lot of plugs for all the computers. The list goes on and on.
You need a proper collaborative office space. That will require you to get out of the kitchen and into a proper office. Even if you have a small team, you need a large enough space for everyone to stretch out a bit. You will need a large table for conferencing, as well as smaller spaces for individual work. You are not going to find anything like this in a typical kitchen/dining room setting.
A Lot More Power
How many unused plugs do you have near your kitchen table? Probably not enough. That is going to be a problem for any kind of office work. At the very least, your computer will need to be near power. If you have an external monitor, that is another plug. Printer? Scanner? Smartphone? They all need power for your long workday.
They might even need their own circuitry. Some computers draw a lot of power. So does the microwave. Have you noticed how the lights dim for a moment, or the wifi goes a little bit nuts when someone is making popcorn? That is normal but annoying. By having additional and separate wiring for your office needs, you will avoid some of the hassles that are a natural part of doing power-hungry tasks in the kitchen. A real office space eliminates those power concerns.
Security
You cannot consistently perform the best security practices when your office is in your kitchen. Your screen with all its sensitive client data is open to anyone who passes by your window. No hack is necessary. You are likely using the same computer that others in the family used to download and play online games. If so, your data is already breached. The security software that you got for free or cheap on the internet might be a bigger security hole than if you lived without it. Even so, it is not very good compared to true business data security. For security, your kitchen is among the worst places to work.
Constant Distractions
Your kitchen is probably the most distracting part of your house. That cold pizza in the fridge is always calling to you. The kids are constantly running and screaming and playing. The dog always wants your attention. The cat is always on your computer being cute. None of these things happen in a proper office designed for getting work done. Not everyone is as susceptible to distractions as others. Perhaps you are one of those people who could sleep through an elephant stampede and work through a Category 5 tornado without as much as looking up from your monitor. But if you are even a little distractible, your kitchen will find a way to leech your productivity one piece of cold pizza at a time.
Working from home is truly a great option provided you have the right kind of home and are the right kind of person. Otherwise, go to a real office where there are collaborative workspaces, power to spare, business-level security, and no distractions.