Organizing the Home Office: Home Computer and Office Equipment, Part One

In our urban home, we designed our home office to meet the needs of two professionals, one of them a working writer. We pattern our home office after the professional office, borrowing what is useful from the practices of office management. Effective offices run on systems. We set everything up with an initial investment of time and effort, do our best to maintain it ongoing, and adjust as warranted. As we readied our home office for the new year, we discussed paperwork and household records, calendar, budget, and correspondence. In this column, I discuss one of the central systems not just for the home office but for the home: the home computer and its peripherals.

ORGANIZING THE HOME OFFICE: HOME COMPUTER

As with all guides at Urban Home Blog, this is not meant to be a comprehensive list but one of suggestions based on my own experience as a lifestyle writer, homekeeper, and administrative professional. None of this is meant to replace or supersede professional direction or advise. As always, none of these is a compensated endorsement.

Home Office Equipment - Overview

Office equipment is items that perform functions associated with office work, such as computers, printers, copiers, telecommunications system, etc. Office equipment is typically categorized as either depreciable or disposable. Depreciable equipment requires an investment of funds, which depending upon the equipment may also qualify it as durable equipment. As the equipment is used, the investment pays for itself through usage, but it begins to lose value once usage commences. In the ideal budget model, once equipment has depreciated to zero via these two complimentary mechanisms, it has not only paid for itself but the cost savings, accumulated over the time of the depreciation, means there is an available pool of money with which to purchase the replacement, at least current but ideally upgraded.

Disposable equipment doesn't meet the financial threshold for depreciation but still requires a noticeable expenditure. These financial definitions are highly individual to each budget, for it is by budget that the thresholds for depreciability and disposability are calculated. Disposable equipment is easily replaced because it is lower-cost, but retains some value while being used -- for example, computer peripherals such as printers, low-cost home electronics such as simple DVD players, some small appliances.

If this seems overly businesslike for the household, remember that many items in the household are already being affected by depreciation and disposability. Examples include major-purchase home electronics, major appliances, and the family car. Understanding depreciation and disposability is important for they have financial implications for the household, including budget, insurance, and potentially taxes.

Home Office Equipment - Home Computer

It wasn't that long ago that computers were sinister oversized machines reserved for concerns far from the common person, such as government, big business, universities, and science fiction. To those to whom "the computer," even as a concept, was incomprehensible, being able, or for that matter willing, to operate one evoked a sense of amazement. I am old enough to remember being asked "do you know how to use the computer" in office job interviews, and being tagged with enhanced candidacy because I could truthfully state that I did. I remember earning my first adult paycheck because I could do "word processing." I remember orange characters blipping along black screens as I typed, and I remember storing what I typed on floppy disks (the big ones).

Shall we reminisce about when the very phrase "home computer" signaled affluence? I remember feeling a notable sense of accomplishment when I bought my first home computer, because it was a sign of arrival in the same way that owning your own VCR or a quality hi-fi setup was. Aficionados can site numerous exceptions, but owning home electronics has progressed from being a plateau of material accomplishment to being so common as to hardly merit mentioning. It sounds unbelievable to contemporary ears that home electronics were not always everyday items, but they weren't.

They weren't, but now they certainly are. Pew reports that 84% percent of American homes have a home computer. Many households have several computers, including smartphones and tablets, and many of those computers are in subsequent generations of usage and replacement. This is where to begin with appraising the need for and planning the purchase of a home computer. Home computers fall into the category of depreciation (see above): they begin to lose value as soon as they go into use. That is important because, with the exception of households where computer usage will be very light, the threshold of what a buyer spends on a home computer includes accepting that it will need to be replaced. It is more than the simple concept of exact exchange of funds -- meaning don't spend what you can't afford, though that certainly applies -- it is return on investment (ROI), meaning what one gets for what one spends.

Because the home computer is depreciable, evaluate its cost not only against budget but against usage, capacity, and life cycle. Don't spend with what you can afford as the only criterion. Buy smart, by evaluating what you need or want your home computer to do now and may want it to do in the future along with how long you need this computer to last before it needs to be replaced. Determine what you can spend with those considerations, then determine which electronics manufacturers provide that, with what reliability and back-up, and with what implications for the present and for the future.

When it's time to buy or replace a home computer, it is well worth the hour or two it will take to do some research. Ready a pad and a pen or open up a note-taking program on a computer at home or at the library. List everyone who will need to access the home computer and what they will need / want to use it for. Examples include budgeting and finance, writing and presentations, record-keeping, and entertainment. Next, assess who in the household has what special computer needs. Examples include media including games, video, music, and photos; work from spreadsheets to specialty programs; common considerations from shareability to security. It's highly specific to household, but for a basic home computer, one typically needs enough memory to create and store documents including photos and records, to link to auxiliaries such as music and home security services, and to utilize the internet. One needs enough memory to use and store all of this, enough RAM to reliably power it, and flexibility to accommodate both current usage and future expansion.

Go online and research the parameters you have identified. Good websites for home computer research include PC Magazine and Techspot. As a starting point, consider as a solid mid-cost investment a PC tower with a quality core processor, 1 TB HDD, 8-12 GB RAM. Further considerations are simple, intuitive set-up and usage including pre-loaded internet access, and a solid performance history with available live support and a good warranty. If you research and compare with those specifications, it should become evident what kinds of systems are available at what costs, which you can then investigate towards what will work for your household for both usage and budget. Remember that tech research gets complex, so write down questions as they arise, which they will -- and which is also a good reminder that a factor in the decision is your / your family's level of comfort with tech. You can then consult with a sales representative whether that is in person or an online chat, ultimately to balance what you have learned through research and consult against your budget for the expenditure.

Regarding cost, home computers and peripherals are typically priced and vended unilaterally, so it is worth it to develop a relationship with a vendor you feel comfortable with, whether that is a local business, a big box showroom, or an online vendor. The best deals will be available as older models phase out; during high volume sales periods such as back to school, Black Friday, and year-end clearance; or during special purchase events at high traffic online vendors such as Tiger Direct. Developing a relationship with a trustworthy vendor is the best way to get the best available deal.

Once you have decided upon your computer, you will have to configure it, likely as part of a larger home technology set-up. As mentioned above, an important factor regarding the choice of a home computer is household level of comfort with technology. Depending upon that, it may be worth the expense to buy a general service contract to cover both work on the machines themselves and implementation and usage of their capacities, perhaps at a starter plan of three to six months. Geek Squad offers a good basic package.

In the next column, we will discuss home office equipment and home connectivity.

Resources
Organizing the Home Office
Designing the Home Office
Home Electronics