After the pandemic, ditch your office for good!

We have been office-free for six years and advise everyone to do the same

For a long time, working from home was a sign of weakness. All the high-achieving people in successful companies had their separate rooms, or at least a cubicle, or at least a hot desk in a co-working space. As a company who has never had an office during its six years of existence, we have seen many raised eyebrows, and even heard a fair share of sarcastic comments. Now things have changed.

The Coronavirus epidemic has forced everyone whose work can be moved elsewhere (so not including nurses or bin collectors) to work from home, at least for a while. In times like these, returning to normalcy is understandably desirable, yet in our opinion, one thing we really should not get back to is working from offices.

First thing to keep in mind — working from an office, for most people in the developed world, means a very particular kind of office — the open office. The idea of open planning itself is around 100 years old and is traceable to the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. In the corporate world, it rose to hegemonic status quite recently in the late 1990s–early 2000s, fueled by promises of the increased creativity of employees not separated by walls. Various co-working spaces are still built on this promise. An empty promise, as has proven to be the case. Numerous studies in recent years have debunked the creativity myth of shared spaces — turns out, open planning actually makes people less cooperative and co-creative. Yet, since open offices are so wonderfully cost-saving and beneficial for shareholders, companies still continue to deny the uselessness and, worse, harmfulness of such settings.

What if you are one of the lucky few who has a room of one’s own in the office? Should you be ditching it anyways? We say — at least, give it a thought! First, it would bring the commuting cost (in time and money spent) down to zero. Not just less, but zero. Zip. Nada. Depending on your specific conditions, only you can assess how much saved time it would free up in a month for actually getting things done. Or a year … Or your career …

Second, being on your own can do wonders, if only you let it. Brainstorming is great for some things, but much else cannot be achieved in such chatter. Some ideas can only be found while wandering alone through a forest of possibilities, for a considerable stretch of time, uninterrupted. A set of conditions rarely met in any kind of office that by its own existence, invites various kinds of interruption and interference.

And, by the way, the best brainstorms are the ones that are built on a solid foundation of homework, of reflection, made independently by the participants beforehand. Maybe more work alone, within the privacy of our homes, will actually promote more meaningful team-cooperation and co-creation, so necessary in times of crisis. So here’s to more home-work!