CoWorking

Adventures in #CoWorking

So, my experiment in coworking has been fun, and I think I’m going to continue it. The biggest benefit has been the fact that when I’m done in the afternoons, I pack up my laptop and go home. Most nights, I don’t even unpack my bag; my day ends at a reasonable hour, and I’m more involved with family when I need to be.

As I posted previously, I had originally started working out of a place in Suwanee, Georgia (about 20 minutes from house; 30-45 with traffic). CEO Centers Flex space is a nice facility, and the day-to-day staff is fine. There’s very few amenities, and it’s a wide open space. The problem is that I take a lot of calls…. and I mean, a LOT of calls. Wide open spaces are apparently not conducive to lots of phone calls, so about two months in to my stay, I came in to the office to find the following note (prominently placed in front of my seat… and only my seat).

Whoops. Time to find a new home.

PARADIGM WORKHUB

I started looking, and luckily, a new workspace had opened up that was actually closer to home and was 10 bucks cheaper a month. It also had corners, and a door that I could close. Because it’s newly open, not a lot of people are there yet. Score.

2019-12-17 by Blogging is FUN! 0

Moving from #WFH to #CoWorking

I’ve been a remote worker for the last 15 years of my career, and I’ve often bragged about how efficient it was to work from home. I could do all sorts of household chores, as well as manage my business needs. Didn’t need to spend three hours commuting round trip each day, and was always available as needed. It’s a great time to work remote, and my company has a good culture for us.

Unfortunately, working from home also led to two major issues for me: distractions during the day, and the never ending day. Distractions were subtle; sometimes it was easier to just zone out rather than dealing with the mountain of paperwork and conference calls awaiting me. The never ending day often resulted from those distractions; because my work is at my house, it was easy just to put off family time and just keep working.

My new office space https://ceocentersflex.com/coworking-space/

I’m trying something radical; I’ve started coworking. I didn’t want to drive three hours to the corporate office, so I’ve found a space that was 20 minutes from my house. I rent a table, have faster internet, and I pack in and out each day. It gives me the opportunity to be around people (so I feel guilty hauling a TV screen in) as well as a definitive end to my day.

It’s been an interesting experiment so far; listening to other people’s conference calls and meetings has been the biggest change\challenge, but in general, I’m getting used to it. I’ll talk more about my gear in a future post, but for the most part, I’ve minimized my work footprint.

2019-09-30 by Blogging is FUN! 0