I haven’t had a ‘proper office’ for 23 years. Here are five things I’ve learned.
I gave up a single, fixed office to go independent at around the turn of the millennium. Not long after I remember setting an ‘Out of office’ auto response when I was visiting a client outside of London. My friend David received my automated message and pinged me back:
“What do you mean you are out of the office, you ARE your office!!”
David was right. I carried my office with me, and have been doing so ever since. In my life, work is a mindset, not a place I go.
These days not having an office is hardly jaw-dropping news, but back in 2000, before the availability of wifi and mobile working, I felt like a pioneer out in the Wild West.
Here are five lessons I’ve learned in twenty three years without an office.
Pick n’mix your workspaces. Having multiple places to work from beats having just one. In a typical week I hang out at a variety of different places. These might include a hotel lobby, a coworking space, an art gallery; and definitely include a handful of coffee shops. I organise my working life so I can pick n’mix the right space for the right task. Sending invoices? My desk in the studio attic. Ideas for a workshop? A walk. Writing a presentation? A coffee shop. Top tip - if heading to a specific space, say a coffee shop, make sure you have clear goals of what you want to achieve while there, so your time is maximised and you get what you want done.
If your work life has no borders, create a buffer. WFH has shown many of us that it's hard to separate work and home. Creating buffers — space and time — between work and home can help. If I have a morning working from home I make sure I go for a walk first, to create space between breakfast and work. It used to be just 10 minutes; but now we’ve got a dog it means a longer ‘commute’ and that’s great. There’s no excuse not to get out in all weathers.
Coffee shop working is brilliant. But it can get distracting. I remember my first visit to Palo Alto in 2004. I set up for a morning’s graft at the Printer’s Inc cafe, where everybody seemed to be working from laptops planning their early tech startups. That wasn’t so common in London then. Today coffee shops are full of people using it as an office, even those who have a regular office. I work a lot from coffee shops, I love the noise, I love that sense of community. Sometimes it’s great to work from a place where I feel like Norm in the old US sitcom ‘Cheers’. Other times, I just need to get my head down and find a place where everybody doesn’t know my name. Either way, choose your coffee shop carefully and bring headphones if you’d rather not be interrupted.
Having multiple workspaces makes me better at my job. My value to clients is in bringing an outside point-of-view. Most of us realise we’ll never have our best ideas at our desks and offices. So I feel really lucky that I can work wherever I fancy: I choose wherever I’ll get my best work done. I pick certain spots to give me a fresh perspective or bring clarity. When my friend David and I wrote our book ‘Zoom! The faster way to make your business happen,’ we headed to Paris and walked around the streets to devise the ideas and structure for the book. If I get stale in one space, I just switch to a different one. Inhabiting multiple spaces makes me more creative and productive.
Get organised! I use three connected devices for work: an iPhone, my MacBook Air and a desktop PC. I rely on tools like TeuxDeux, Gmail and Google Drive to do my work. Although most of my work lives in the Cloud, I still carry around tangible office essentials in a backpack: a Moleskine journal, Muji notepad, Sharpies, Muji pens, post-it notes and Artefact Cards. Wherever you work from, make sure you’ve got the right tools to support you.
Thanks for reading! If you want more ideas on getting more out of your work life, check out my latest book 365 Ways To Have a Good Day.
