Design the Room Around Her Day, Not Just Your Desk
Working from home full time means your cat spends her whole waking pattern in one room's orbit, so that room has to carry her routine: somewhere to sleep near you, somewhere high to survey from, something legitimate to scratch, and access to water without trekking past her litter tray. When those needs are met inside the office, she stops improvising, and improvisation is what puts cats on keyboards, inside printer trays, and behind monitors.
Start with territory at two heights. A bed at desk level covers the social sleeping she wants during your calls, while a shelf or tall post in a corner gives her the elevated retreat she needs when the room gets loud or a delivery arrives. A cat with a sanctioned high spot uses your bookcase less.
Build Play Into the Working Day
The single biggest difference between a cat who tolerates your job and one who sabotages it is scheduled play. Two short sessions, one before your first meeting and one mid-afternoon, burn off the hunting energy that otherwise surfaces as ankle ambushes during presentations. A wand toy kept in the desk drawer makes the break easy to honour; five focused minutes beat a distracted half hour of dangling string while you read email.
End each session with a small meal or treat so the hunt-catch-eat sequence completes and she settles to wash and sleep, which is the natural next step. On days when back-to-back calls crush the afternoon session, a puzzle feeder set down before the call buys her occupied time without your hands.
Make the Hazards Boring and Inaccessible
Full-time cohabitation multiplies small risks. Cable bundles behind monitors invite chewing, especially from young cats; spiral wrap or a cable box removes the temptation in one pass. Paper clips, elastic bands, and earbuds left on the desk are swallow hazards for a cat who bats first and investigates with her mouth, so they live in a drawer, not a desk tidy. Houseplants on the windowsill should be checked as safe for cats or moved, because a bored cat eventually tastes a leaf.
Your chair deserves a habit too: look before you roll back. Cats sleep under office chairs precisely because the spot is dark, warm, and near you. A bed placed beside the chair gives her the proximity without the wheel risk.
Set a Door and Call Routine She Can Predict
Decide in advance whether she stays in or out during calls, and make it the same every day. A cat sometimes admitted and sometimes shut out scratches and calls at the door; a cat who always has her bed, water, and a toy in the room during calls settles because the pattern never changes. If a particular meeting needs her out, move her before it starts with a treat in her other room, not mid-call in a flustered grab.
Visitors to the office, from partners to repair people, should know the door rule too, so she is not accidentally shut in a cupboard space or let into rooms that are not cat-proofed.
Keep Her Whole Routine Visible to the Household
An office cat's day involves more than you: someone may feed lunch, clean the tray, or take over play while you travel for work. Writing her office routine, play times, and feeding jobs down as assigned tasks through KinsLe's Care Teams means each duty has an owner and a timestamp when it is done, so her day stays steady even when your calendar is not.