Don’t get me wrong, I love working from home and I wouldn’t swap it for the world. There’s somethig special about ditching the one hour motorway hell and replacing it with a ten second trip to the bedroom office.
I have to be honest though and admit that I’ve been getting itchy feet recently. I’ve been working hard over the last few weeks and that’s meant a lot of time staring at the same four walls while I type away, and now I think it’s time for a change.
I’ve got a load of writing to do over the next few days, and so I’m considering taking my laptop into town, putting up camp in a coffee shop, and just hammering the keyboard while enjoying a slightly different view.
I’m not really a coffee shop person though, but then I think that bad rumours will circulate fast if I’m seen entering local bars at 9am and then leaving at 5pm each and every day!
Has anyone tried working somewhere else like this before? Did you find it helped you become a touch more productive and did you enjoy the new setting? And where exactly did you go?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this….and who knows…I might be typing my next message from a coffee shop leather chair while watching the world roll on by!
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Lee McIntyre went from overworked high school teacher to full time marketer in just 56 days from scratch. He is the founder of Get More Momentum where he shows others how to use honest marketing to build profitable Internet businesses in record time.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Lee,
I have been “working from home” for the last 17 years – I am whats called a channel sales person/dealer manager so my home has always been my office, I visit the office once a month for a sales meeting and usually spend a monday scheduling appointments and caching up with admin. It always makes me smile when the majority of sales copy material on the internet I read is geared toward selling the concept of a work from home strategy !.
I would offer a piece of advice to you – get away from that environment as often as you can, do some work in a coffee shop, catch up on your reading material there. Meet clients/customers on neutral ground, I try to schedule a number of visits in a hotel which is convenient for me and my clients and cuts down on mileage and offers a different working environment for me to make phone calls etc between appointments.
I find sometimes that by getting away from home you can be more productive in different ways !
cheers
David
Lee,
I know exactly what you mean about getting sick of the whole bedroom-office, although it’s great not to have to get in the car for an hour every morning, it’s nice to have a change of scenery once in a while.
My favourite option is just heading down to my local Starbucks and chilling out there. They even have free wi-fi which is a bonus. Sometimes the change of scenery does actually aid productivity, although I do find myself getting distracted when old university friends show up!
Lee, get one of those army surplus laptops. You know, the ones that work under water while covered in several layers of mud. Then head on down to the beach and live it up!
I am currently holidaying on the Sunshine Coast (Australia) with my trusty laptop and I can assure you that changing the scenery is truly an effective way of recharging the batteries..
Brendan.
Hi David
That’s tremendous advice and I’d like to thank you for it.
I’m trying to build in one day a week where I meet other marketers and potential business partners, and this is always a nice break from the office.
It’s an excellent point about reading and writing in somewhere like a coffee shop. I’m certainly going to start doing this, and I just feel that it will leave me feeling a tad fresher at times.
Thanks for the input!
Hi James
I didn’t know Starbucks has free Wi-Fi so I’ll have to check that out.
I must have a deep running mean streak as I quite like the idea of sitting in a warm coffee house while thinking of my friends go to work in the cold.
I’m joking of course, but I’ll certainly give this a bash.
Hi Brendan
Sadly the beach isn’t an option for me right now
I’m looking out of the window and it’s raining. Yesterday it was raining. In fact, I cann’t remember a time when it didn’t rain here!
Telling a rain soaked Mancunian to go to the beach in January is like telling someone in the tropics to build a snowman!
If I didn’t have a launch coming up I could just jump in a plane I guess, but I’d certainly need to fly for sometime to find a beach warm enough to sit on.
I’ve never been to Australia but I’d love to go. Once I have my systems set up a bit better then I’m certainly going to visit, and then I can make my UK subscribers feel depressed by telling them I’m on the warm beach.
Thanks for the comments everyone!
Lee McIntyre
Although I don’t have an ‘office’ – I really do wish that I could go and work elsewhere. However, I’m not able to…so I’ll just have to live from were I do work!
I wonder where you’ll end up first Lee? Sitting in a Starbucks, or watching Manchester United and typing away…
Lee,
That sounds like a brilliant idea. I would love to be able to do the same, but it’s a little harder when you have a toddler. When it gets warmer I’m hoping to be able to take the laptop to the park, so she can play and I can some work done outside of these four walls.
Let us know where you end up and how it goes.
Jackie Lee
Hi Lee,
I’ve worked from the home for the past year. It does get a tad boring and I want to some how change things round this year. Have you thought about getting a 3g USB modem for your laptop? Take broadband with you where-ever you go, and literally be able to work almost anywhere. That could be an interesting way of working…
Cheers
Rob
Lee,
I should mention that the Free WiFi is provided through t-Mobile which my friend uses so they gave me their access codes – I’m not sure if it’s free all over the country – but it’s worth checking before you visit.
I know that some Starbucks in London offer Wi-Fi to everyone. The other thing to check out is one of those free hotspots sites which tell you locations all over the UK where you can get access to Wifi for free!
James
Thanks for the input guys.
I’ve actually got broadband on my mobile meaning that I can work pretty much anywhere now.
I’m looking forward to the summer and sitting in the garden and maybe even having a cold beer too!
James – my friend has a keyring that actually beeps when he goes into a free wifi area. And yes he is a computer geek!!
Lee McIntyre
I enjoy mixing it up and working at Starbucks or other places just for a change of scenery and to get out of the house/office. I shot this last summer while I was working writing articles outside Starbucks:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=PLdc2BIdir0
The audio is off but you get the picture.
Hey Alan
That’s what I’ll be doing when(if?) the sun comes out here in the UK!
I quite like the idea of sitting and writing in a park – thanks for the video!
Lee McIntyre