We all used to envy the digital nomads posting photos from a hammock in the prettiest places our planet has to offer. If only we had that freedom to work from a tropical island.
And although this exact scenario may not be realistic for most of us. Covid has proven what we already knew: work can really be done from anywhere. You may not have the flexibility to work from Thailand’s beautiful beaches, but maybe post-Corona you can find some freedom to expand your horizon.
Perhaps we can give you some inspiration on how to pick up your work life from where you left it pre-Corona.
Same same, not different
Post-Covid, most companies will keep the option of working from home. The number of days will vary from only one day a week to quite the opposite: only 1 day at the office. Some companies have “given up” on the office entirely, providing flexible space to work or meet with colleagues only when it’s needed. We will see a rise in flexible workspaces and uncommon places offering dedicated environments to work too, like coffee bars, cafes, restaurants and hotels.
With the promise of everybody being fully vaccinated by September, it is a good time to start looking at how we want to return to our “office-life”. For various reasons, most of us will still have an office to go to. Team ScaleHub most certainly is looking forward to having a full house again. And as most of us have been working from home for over 14 months, by now we probably all appreciate the change of scenery opposed to the same same, not different days at the home office.
At the beginning of this year a news item circulated of a man who had built an entire office setup in his car, just to have some peace and quiet from his kids. We may not all have kids, but no doubt we can all relate to a certain extent: there really is a point to having an office, although our motivation to go there may vary.
A fresh look
What we all need to figure out now, is how we can best return to our office. Should it look different from where we left it? Do we need to schedule who works when? Should we use workspaces closer to our homes to reduce commuting? And these are just some practical questions.
Flexible space within your office building
It’s common nowadays for office buildings to have some sort of flexible space. At ScaleHub we found we can best serve the needs of our tenants by creating a well designed and comfortable shared space to use as a sociable environment, but also offer meeting rooms and concentration booths to work with teams or in solitude.
We urge you to use this flexible space, from wherever you are working. Is your office getting too crowded, with more and more people returning? Do you need to catch up with some people? Working to a tight deadline? Use the shared facilities your building has to offer to your advantage. This may sound very logical, but we are creatures of habit and we soon get stuck to the same desks, even though it doesn’t serve the various needs we may have in a work day.
Walt Disney had it all figured out. In the process of creating new stories, he used three different spaces to support him on his three different stages of work: The Dreamer, The Realist and The Spoiler. The Dreamer was the stage of fantasizing without a filter. The Realist would re-examine those ideas and work them into something more practical. The Spoiler served as the last critical phase, looking at the feasibility of the ideas; if an idea survived this last round, they really deserved to be worked on. For each of these stages he had a different room to support him on the task at hand. Try to be a bit like Walt Disney.
Don’t work from home OR your office
We are now mostly consumed by the discussion: how much time will we be working from home versus at the office. But why not make it a habit to occasionally work in an entirely new environment? Find your peace, new energy or ideas elsewhere.
Here’s some simple ideas:
- If your company has multiple offices, request to work in a different office every now and then
- Do your friends work from nice places? Ask them if you can come and work from their office for a day
- Many places offer free work space (you pay with coffee), not just the coffee bars. Do some research and you will find them.
- A coffee bar is not a bad idea if you go there to work for 2 hours and then return to the (home-) office again
- Book a meeting room in a nice new place, for yourself or to work with some coworkers or a specific team if you need to get a job done
Work without wifi
Where do our best ideas come to life? It’s often not in the place called planet internet. Our best work may be done where we don’t go to work. Like nature. When we clear our brains in the forest. When we take a walk through our city. When we’re at a museum. When we enjoy any form of culture, like music, dance, dining, movies and theatre. The “outdoor-office” has been available to us for the past year but we are happy to see that soon enough we can fully charge our creative battery again too.
Enjoy your new office life!
