The working from home thread: tips and advice

80% of all my calls with the office/my boss seem to be this.

I think Amazon might be a pound or two cheaper. But in general I'm trying to reduce the amount of money I give to Daddy Bezos. Yesterday's Tado splurge (Owning Your Own Home thread>>>>>>) has made me feel dirty enough.

I've just ordered a couple of these

Turns out my desk (the cheapest IKEA offering) is literally made of cardboard internally so I'm not confident in a double stand, it'll just crush the desk surface. I'll sandwich these clamps with some scrap wood. Just need a ~30cm high box to raise the keyboard and mouse up now.

We'll see how it goes

Agree that Bezos is a knobhead though.

Cheers for the various thoughts. My current desk is something like 140x70cm but not that comfy (slightly too high for a shortarse).

Would like something smaller to recover a room from being primarily an office but I suspect depth isn't really something I can compromise on (thinking that one big monitor should allow a bit less width).

I saw Ikea had a few sit/stand desks that were possibles. Likely plan is to get a frame so I can choose my own size for the top.

Also, any suggestions for non office chair looking office chairs? Preferably in white or light grey or something.

My current desk is something like 140x70cm but not that comfy (slightly too high for a shortarse).

I've been internally grumbling about my desk being slightly too high (my feet aren't quite nicely planted on the ground with the chair at the right height for the desk/keyboard) for a good few months now.

And it's only just dawned on me that THE DESK HAS ADJUSTABLE LEGS. I must have put it back together slightly higher last time I moved it all around (I needed to take its legs off to get it through the door more easily).

I'm an idiot (but at least I can sort the desk height out tomorrow).

My desk top was £6 from Ikea, cheapest particle board, and it seems fine with the double stand.

After six months of WFH, top tips

These are all good tips. I put my lunch in my diary as a recurring appointment. I don't always work during that time but it means Teams says I'm busy.

I'd add set your teams or whatever to busy when you are actually busy. It will put some people off contacting you and the ones that do can be temporarily ignored. Often when I go back to them they've got the solution from someone else, or actually put their thinking cap on rather than sliding into my Teams inbox with random brain farts.

I think of it as being like the snooze function on an alarm clock. It's harder to snooze people when you're available and it's a bit like emails: every message can potentially derail your train of thought entirely.

What was I saying?

alternatively, stick your teams to always away. that way you don't need to look up from the giro to shoogle your mouse every time your status flips from green to yellow

Were you typing…? Teams has an equivalent API call, but no sense of humour.

27" monitor arrived. Will be better when I'm not constrained by stuff either side of the desk and I and make some kind of under desk sling/shelf for the laptop and dock, but that's a job for the new house.

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I'd say make sure you try to keep the work and home life separate

With office work, the commute was more than just exercise - it was a time for me to transition from HomeTW to OfficeTW - who are different enough people that friends / family that talk to me while I'm in the office notice it - it also enables me to compartmentalise work and home. I don't even think about work, if I can help it, when I'm at home.

Having my office right next to the living room makes this quite difficult. Having people coming into my office makes this difficult.

The blurring has not been easy, and, unfortunately, I don't see a fix.

I try to mitigate it by being in my office alone, and not coming out to chatter.

When I finish (haha) the garden office, that mental distancing will have a physical aspect to it that should help out too.

My main thing, though, is work station setup.

Laptops are a no-no for sustained desk working. No matter how good your seat or desk - If you're looking at a screen by your hands, you're doing your back / neck / body no favours.

This was the main reason for the stand and separate screens. I've had the laptop and a separate keyboard, with the laptop up on a riser, but it's just too small a screen for any hardcore excel funky timez.

Next step is to find someone in IT who I can bully to switch the 24" for a matching 27", but that will need to wait until the new house, as I have no more lateral real estate with a wall to my left and the IKEA kallax to my right.

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If you don't choose to work from home (e.g. you're forced to), and your employer doesn't give you any extra towards doing so, then you should be able to claim £6/week tax relief without having to provide any proof/receipts:-

https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home

Given that's [tax relief on] £312/year (that's meant to cover the increase in utility bills, etc from being at home all the time). I've worked from home two days a week for the last 10 years but that was by choice so that doesn't qualify. However Coronaplague has meant I've been forced to work from home since March, so I've definitely got a chunk of tax I can claim back come next tax return and I plan on sticking that towards home office upgrades.

(I've wibbled about upgrading my home setup before. Ideally I'd like to try a single 43" 4K monitor to replace the two existing 23" 1920x1080 monitors, but the £430 4K monitor that was on Scan has gone and the cheapest is now £530. An alternative would be two 27" 2560x1440 monitors mounted vertically giving 2880x2560 but that's still £470 at the cheapest with VESA mounts.)

You could run the smaller one vertically? Good for email and some other applications

I could, but I prefer landscape. I usually share the left hand screen and work on stuff of the right. If I need to drag stuff in and out of the share, it needs/should be the same format/ratio or I will go mad/blind.

my work are going to send me a 22" monitor - think I'll supplement it with a 24" also. was looking at this the dell U2419H. anyone got any experience of this? I like that it rotates, has a VESA mount, can be daisy chained, and has good colour repro/latency performance. I'll probably repurpose it as a gaming monitor once the pandemic abates (in 2023). it's £160

or should I plump for something more swanky like 4K or an ultrawide?

On the tax thing, you'll have worked from 2019/20 and 20/21 in lockdown so there's tax to be claimed.

(I have)

https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2020/04/martin-lewis--working-from-home-due-to-coronavirus--claim-p6-wk-/ is the other link for it.

Forgot it was tax relief on £6/wk so £2.40/wk back for those on higher rate of tax (still ~£125) not £6/wk in your pocket.

That also has details of how to submit a claim (via P87) without having to do a full tax return.

I don't think I'll get much (if anything) for 2019/20 as I was still in the office mid-March and can't remember when we were forced to work from home (rather than just requested to do so if we can).

The 2416H was on sale for £67 yesterday, expect it will drop that low again soon, not sure how it compates to the 2419H

webcam (and child safety locks) = latest iteration for me. happy days.

Monitor stands arrived...

I am pretty dubious

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