Building a home office that keeps working in Lagos

A good home office anywhere needs a decent chair, a screen at eye level and quiet. In Lagos it also has to survive power cuts, heat and an internet connection with moods. Plan for those first and everything else is easier.

Power: decide what has to stay on

Make a short list of what must keep running during an outage: usually the router, one screen and a laptop. That list sets the size of your backup. A small inverter or power station with a surge protector covers most single-desk setups; a full home solar system is a bigger decision.

• Put the router and modem on the backup first. A laptop has its own battery; the internet does not.
• Use a surge-protected extension, not a bare one. Voltage swings when power returns are what kill adapters.
• Label your plugs. When the power goes, you will know what to unplug in seconds.

Heat: the desk goes where the air moves

Avoid the west-facing wall if you can; afternoon sun turns it into a radiator. A fan aimed across you (not at you) keeps air moving without blowing papers about. Mesh-back chairs are noticeably cooler than padded ones over a long day.

Internet: two routes beat one fast one

A second connection, even a modest mobile data plan on a separate network, turns an outage from a lost afternoon into a two-minute switch. Keep the router high and central, away from the fridge and microwave.

Test your backup on a quiet weekend: switch the mains off and see what actually stays on. It is better to find the weak link before a client call.

Cables: tidy is cooler and safer

Tangled cables trap heat and dust and make it hard to unplug quickly. A tray under the desk and a few ties take an hour and make the whole space feel calmer.

Then the comfort basics

With power, heat and internet planned, the rest is the same everywhere: the screen at eye level, elbows at keyboard height, and a chair you can sit in for hours. Our five-minute desk check walks through it.