By Steve W
…but still ditch the office desk
Sitting in traffic is one of the most soul destroying daily practices. The clock ticks by, tensions rise, traffic reports warn of imminent blockages. It can often feel like you’re literally wasting your time.
For so long I dreamed of ditching the daily commute. No more waiting in line at the entrance to the motorway. No more “parking sweats” as the frantic search for a space intensifies. That was until my shift pattern suddenly changed and rather than aiming to be in the building for 9am, it became 7am.
No traffic concerns
Leaving home at 6 o’clock in the morning meant minimal traffic. The parking spaces were not filled as quickly. There was greater availability closer to the office building. An earlier start meant an earlier finish too; leaving midway through the afternoon, avoiding the rush hour.
Then the dreaded Corona Virus hit. It quickly became clear that we would be required to work from home. In the hrand scheme of things I’m one of the lucky ones: no reduction in pay, no furlough, no dreaded redundancy. Three months with no traffic concerns. A chance to test out whether working from home is really as appealing as I always suspected.
Motivated by freedom of movement
I swiftly settled in to a neat routine. Getting up early, daily exercise completed, nice breakfast cooked, home schooling out the way, logging on to the computer. It worked seamlessly for the first month. That was until it didn’t. Suddenly going in to the converted “office” with its infinite mess and dull lighting became a drag. It was like crawling in to a cave each day.
The lack of airflow added to sluggishness. The standard work was getting done, but all of those “extras” that I had added confidently to the list at the start of lockdown were not disappearing off the to-do and motivation was waning.
As we started getting drafted back in to a working environment -single days at first, increasing gradually as the months went on- I suddenly rediscovered a semblence of motivation. Getting back on the road, in to civilisation (no matter how weird or awkward with social distancing and face masks) felt invigorating. My productivity increased not only in work but in my personal endeavours to.
After thinking it through it wasn’t necessarily the fact that I had returned to my physical place of work that had allowed me to rediscover my motivation. The location was irrelevant. It was the freedom of movement that I found so motivating.
Working remotely is still an option
My long term ambition remains working remotely, in employment that does not require me to attend a specific location every day. However, working strictly from home, in a home office environment, did not work out well in the short space I tried it. I thought working from home would be great. Turns it wasn’t as liberating as I expected.
That said, being chained to a designated location is not the answer either. I’ve discovered I need a middle ground. The ability to pick and choose my spot for the day. Have laptop, wil travel. The cafe, the library, the coffee shop, the back of a car with a WiFi box – the choice of locations is endless. It may change each day, but the key point is the choice of location. Working as a Digital Nomad, picking my own times and spaces to work in are of more interest than strictly working from home.
It’s a shame that it took something like a pandemic for me to find this out. However, something we think in theory is the answer does not work out in reality. Maybe one day I’ll be sitting on a beach with alaptop somewhere, growing grapes by day and coding HTML by night? I still want to work from home, as long as “home” is flexible enough to move with me.