A recent Gallup study found that 71 percent of US workers are “not engaged” or are “actively disengaged” in their work. This suggests that only a third of American workers are deeply engaged in their jobs, which is at least a serious challenge for businesses, and perhaps a serious threat. And the proportion of disengaged seems to be rising.

New scientific evidence is emerging about the benefits of telework (or telecommuting), supporting anecdotal knowledge about workers’ desire to work outside of the office. (We’ll be digging more into these kinds of topics at Net:Work on Dec. 8.) Stanford University partnered with a Chinese travel agency to find out if teleworkers were more productive, as reported by Ray Fisman at Slate:

Within a few weeks, the performance of the telecommuting group started to pull away from their cubicle-bound counterparts. Over the duration of the experiment, home workers answered 15 percent more calls, partly because each hour was 4 percent more productive, and partly because home office employees spent 11 percent more time answering phone calls. (Home workers took fewer breaks and sick days, rarely arrived late to their desks, and had fewer distractions.) While answering more calls, the distractions of home life had no impact on the quality of service: The home-work group converted phone calls into sales at exactly the same rate as those in the office. And employees themselves liked the arrangement better, making it look like a win-win for the company. The home-work group reported less “work exhaustion,” a more positive attitude towards their jobs, and were nearly 50 percent less likely to say they were planning to quit at the end of the eight months. (In fact the quit rate among home-office workers during the experiment was about one-half of what it was for those making the commute.)

And the same sort of business thinking that is interested in productivity of telework also starts to extrapolate about the impacts. If 40 percent of workers — in general — are working out of the office, that means 40 percent of office space — and associated expenses, like furniture, energy, and cleaning — might be productively invested elsewhere. In a 2007 Businessweek report, it was estimated that as much as 60 percent of offices space is “a dead zone of darkened doorways and wasting cubes,” and some have estimated that $600B is wasted in direct costs, leaving aside the externalities like impact to the environment, and the costs that employees incur commuting.

Sara Horowitz recently made the case that we really don’t know the makeup of the US workforce any longer, since the US government stopped counting independent workers in any systematic way. However, her research at the Freelancers Union — she’s the founder — indicate that as much as one third of our workforce participates in the rapidly growing freelance economy.

Connecting The Dots

These seemingly independent trends are tied together by the changing mindset of the people doing the work. Young people in particular are increasingly disinclined to commute to a distant office for the sake of ‘face time’, but many people of all ages have personal reasons for wanting to work in a ‘results-only work environment’, where getting the job done becomes the core principle surrounding work.

Giving workers more control of their lives — giving them back many hours of time per week not spent in commuting and pointless meetings, letting them decide when to do what, and putting money in their pockets by cutting commuting costs — has a very serious impact on morale. As the Chinese travel agency example shows, many of the workers reported less ‘work exhaustion’ and were less likely to quit. That seems like a direct antidote to the unengagement risks that Gallup reports US companies are running.

And people moving into telework and results-only work models will need new tools — like the stream-based work media tools I discussed in a recent post here on GigaOM. But with ubiquitous connectivity, mobile devices, and the proliferation of work media, the technological infrastructure to support telework is very low-cost, and requires basically zero training.

What’s Missing? The Second Place.

But there is a factor that is a potential hiccup. Many folks that adopt a telework or freelance work model and opt to work from home quickly come to miss the social aspect of their old work place.

In the US and Western countries, there has been a growing adoption of coworking spaces, where freelancers, employees of small businesses, or teleworkers can get the best of both worlds: they can work from a work space close to their home — thereby avoiding a long distance commute — but at the same time they can have the support and stimulation that comes from social interaction with well-known people other than your family.

Ray Oldenburg, the urban sociologist, is best known for his notion of the Third Place, like the corner bar, the cafe, or the barber shop, where we can interact with people that we don’t know well, and perhaps with whom we have little in common. He argued that such places are critically import to the health of cities and out societies. He took almost as a given that people would continue their relationship with First and Second Places, the home and the workplace, respectively. But the trends of telework and freelancing means that an increasing means the more people are spending less time in official Second Places, and more at home and Starbucks. But as wonderful as working in a café is, there is definitely a great deal missing.

So it’s no real surprise that the coworking movement is growing at a pace that seems closely linked to the number of people jumping into telework or out of the traditional workplace. Deskmag states there are now more than 1,100 coworking spaces worldwide, more than double the number in 2006. Loosecubes, a service set up to help people find coworking spaces, is tracking over 1,400 locations in over 500 cities, globally.

According to Carsten Foetrsch of deskmag, 72 percent of all coworking spaces become profitable after 2 years of operation, and for privately-run spaces, the number is even higher: 87 percent . So the economics for those interested in setting up and running coworking spaces is compelling.

A Virtuous Cycle?

Looking from a economics viewpoint, all the players have economic motivations to support coworking:

• The office worker saves significant expense and time by decreasing commute time, and those with the longest commutes should have the strongest motivation to shift to telework. Therefore, there is a steady migration to telework as businesses adopt policies to support it.
• Businesses have a strong incentive to increase employee morale and productivity, and to decrease expenses related to the increasingly large percentage of their office space that is underutilized. Even if businesses have to subsidize coworking space use by teleworkers, the net savings are significant.
• As the number of freelancers and teleworkers increase, the demand for coworking space grows, since people need the strong social connections historically offered in the workplace, not just the chance connections afforded by sharing a table in Starbucks.
• Entrepreneurs have strong incentives to create coworking spaces: partly to serve as their own base of operations, but also as a business proposition of its own. Note that the desire of businesses to shed unneeded office space in our down economy also provides lower cost space in which to set up shop.

When you look at it as a system, coworking is a complex societal dance, where the various players are each seeking to  maximize their personal economic situation, and it leads to a new social reintegration. And the result of this migration of workers from the office to the coworking space is a net benefit for the world, too: the decrease in energy use for the unused office space and the decrease in commuting translates into decreased carbon footprints for all involved.

Coworking may turn out to be the pivot in today’s post-industrial transformation of work: a shining example, perhaps, of how large-scale positive change at the societal level can emerge peacefully from the independent pursuit of personal ends.

Stowe Boyd writes and speaks about social tools and their impact on media, business and society. A GigaOM Pro analyst, Boyd also writes at stoweboyd.com and is working on a new book about the rise of a socially augmented world, called Liquid City: A Liquid, Not A Solid; A City, Not A Machine. Stowe will be speaking about co-working at Net:Work. 

Image courtesy of Flickr userRob Pearce.

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One major benefit of coworking is escaping the things in our home offices that make it difficult to work and be productive. The home environment, of course, is full of distractions and interruptions. We’re pulled by unfinished personal projects, interrupted by personal phone calls and knocks on the door, and tempted by many enjoyable ways to procrastinate.

But more than anywhere else, our most vulnerable moments occur at home. It’s where we worry that we aren’t doing the right things for our kids, and where we stare in the mirror and call ourselves ugly. It is where we open ourselves up the most. Consequently, home isn’t just where we live. It’s where our insecurities live, too.

Working from home often means not having someone right there with us to validate decisions or keep us and our business pointed in the right direction. We have to keep going, doing things while being confident from within ourselves that we are on the right path. That confidence, I’m finding, can be difficult to maintain when you work in a home office surrounded by reminders of your personal insecurities.

Leaving my home office to work seems to have the effect of putting away those insecurities. I literally just leave them at home. Putting on decent clothes to go to my coworking space is like putting on armor that keeps the insecurities at bay and lets me be at my professional best. Being around other people who treat me like the professional that I am reminds me to focus on my accomplishments, not my inner critic. In an outside office, I’m not surrounded by reminders that I’m a terrible housekeeper or of all my unfinished projects. Decisions are made faster and with more confidence. I can be more productive, and what I produce feels like better quality to me.

As Celine wrote a few months ago, some home office workers put on business clothes to work in their home offices to get a similar effect on their productivity. While I do find that dressing better to work at home helps a little, nothing has been as effective for me as getting out of my home office and seeking a new environment entirely.

We are all our own worst critics. When your only office mate is that critic, it’s easy to listen to that criticism and let it get to you.

Have you found any unexpected benefits from coworking?

Photo by iClipart.

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Here I go again, writing about organization. This time, though, it’s not because I’ve found a great new app to help me. You see that picture? It’s my inbox, aka my “to-be-dealt-with” pile. And there are two more like it. If only there were an app that could help me!

It’s so much easier to stay organized when everything is virtual. Or, if the files on your hard drive aren’t organized, at least you’re not tripping over them on your way to the kitchen. The moment I have to deal with something tangible these days, I seem to get in trouble. I used to be organized, but my life changed. So I need to get re-organized.

Part of the problem is that when I came to Paris from the U.S., the physical space I could use was drastically reduced. Another part of the problem was adjusting to the organizational methods — if they can be called that — of my office mate (husband).

Just as I was reaching the point where I could no longer tune out the chaos around me, when it was getting really oppressive, I discovered the 5S methodology. You may have heard of it if you’ve ever worked in a place with lots of equipment and people. It’s a five-step program that originated in Japan and was designed to get a work environment organized and keep it that way, all in the interest of maximum efficiency. I’m going to see if I can apply it to the occupational hazard I currently call my office.

The 5S Process

The five steps of 5S, and their approximate English translations are: seiri (sort), seiton (straighten), seiso (shine), seiketsu (systemize), and shitsuke (sustain).

1. Seiri (Sort): Get rid of anything in your work space that is not absolutely necessary for your work.

This first step is supposed to enable you to simplify tasks and use space effectively. It’s also supposed to help you be more selective about what you introduce into your work space and keep the number of work-related items around you to a minimum.

Frankly, for a personal office, I think this is a little extreme and bad for morale in any circumstances. I have a couple of things on my desk that are just there to give me something fun to look at. They’re staying. But the rest can go: the Advil, CDs, business cards (the bane of my existence), masking tape, Christmas postcards I meant to send to the two people I know who haven’t discovered email… There are a few other trouble spots I need to hit too, like the top of the filing cabinet, and that box of cables taking up space I could use. Step one is going to take me a full day at least.

2. Seiton (Straighten): A place for everything, and everything in its place

This step is about efficiency. It encourages you to make optimum use of your work area and to outfit your space with functional storage. It is also important for everything you use for work to have a convenient and appropriate home to which it is returned when you’re done using it.

This is how I used to operate, back when I had a lot of space. Once upon a time, I knew where everything I owned was. The fact that I couldn’t find a recipe last night, despite having paper files for my old, pre-computer recipes, may be the very reason why I’m writing this today. (Getting them onto the computer is on my to-do list. I have gotten as far as comparing recipe management software.)

3. Seiso (Shine): Clean up after yourself

This third step is about being responsible for keeping your own space neat. Most importantly, it doesn’t work unless everyone who shares the space does the same. The idea is to treat your office as if you might have a client drop in at any moment.

OK, once I get all the junk off of my surfaces, I will clean them. Regularly. There’s no way I can begin to do seiso without getting through the first two steps. Until then, no clients allowed.

4. Seiketsu (Systemize): Make it a habit

This fourth step is about establishing standards and a system for organization, and integrating them into your workflow in order to maintain a high level of neatness.

Some time last year, I stumbled across the concept of the “unpleasant task day” on the blog of a management consultant, and thought this would be a good way to approach this step. Michael Wade, the author of that blog, suggests you pick one day a month to do the things you hate to do. But since the 5S process is about neatness and efficiency, I’m thinking it should be more frequent. Maybe I’ll have a weekly “terrible task afternoon” for cleaning up and filing instead.

5. Shitsuke (Sustain): Prevention of backsliding

This last step is more accurately translated as “discipline.” It’s about making yourself maintain the neatness standards and system you’ve put in place.

Because I was once very organized, it shouldn’t be too hard for me to get back in the habit. I’m not so sure my husband is going to like this whole 5S thing though, even though he has the most organized hard drive I’ve ever seen.

The Reality

Clearly it’s unlikely that any of us could strictly adhere to a system like this, especially given the constantly changing nature of our work. Plus there may be uncontrollable factors (like husbands) that can toss a wrench into the works. But I’ve always found that a little structure never hurts when it’s used as a guideline, so I will try it out and see how it goes. Then I’ll try to apply it to my computer files, emails, etc. Anyway, it’ll be fun to say “Seiton!” the next time my husband puts the pliers down on the corner of my desk.

How do you stay organized outside of your computer?

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Some companies already have policies in place to reimburse telecommuting employees for high-speed Internet access. While there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to get a similar reimbursement for office furniture, there is rarely any harm in asking. If you can make it part of your initial negotiations in a move to telecommuting, you may have a better chance of convincing your employer to give you at least part of the money towards your new office equipment. Thinking outside of the box can make that money stretch, as well. A set sum of money that might only pay for half of a brand new chair will go further if you purchase that chair used.

If your employer isn’t willing to help you out with money towards new furniture, there still may be a way to make the purchase less expensive. Some companies make a practice of selling off old office furniture and equipment they no longer need. If your employer fits into that category, you may be able to get a deal. You may even be able to buy the desk you used to use at the office! Loans of office furniture are less common, although companies that sign out computer equipment may be more willing to consider signing out a desk as well. Another option is to find out where your employer purchases office furniture. If you work for a larger company, you may find that it already has a standing agreement to buy office furniture for less than you can on your own, simply because it buys chairs and desks on a regular basis. Even being able to buy through your company’s supplier can cut your costs.

Unfortunately, not all telecommuters will be able to get their employers to help with office furniture costs. However, it’s worth a try, especially when you realize that even an inexpensive desk will top a hundred dollars.

Share your cost-cutting office outfitting tips below.

Image by Flickr user William Hook

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It’s not the easiest decision in the world for a lot of web workers. Whether you’re talking about clients or co-workers, letting them into your house can seem like a bad idea. It’s not as simple as inviting a friend over.

Do You Have a Professional Space?

One of the deciding factors on whether you should let a client into your home is whether you have a professional area in which you can work. There’s a big difference in having a meeting in your home office, where you can both sit comfortably and shut the door, and having a meeting at the kitchen table, with family wandering in and out.

Professionalism goes beyond distractions, as well. I don’t hide the fact that I work from home, but I want my clients to know that when I tell them I’m working, they don’t think I’m catching a cat nap, watching television or doing the laundry. That means that being able to show them a clean office with minimal distractions is a matter of building their confidence in my work.

Can You Work With Your Client/Co-worker At Your Home?

Just because you can get all your work done in your home doesn’t always mean that you can conduct a meeting there. Something as simple as being able to squeeze a spare chair in your office can make a huge difference in whether you’ll be able to accomplish what you hope to with your meeting. Other little details, like whether your client/co-worker can get online, can be worth considering.

Distractions can be an important factor. Coffee shops can have a few of their own with the number of people who walk by, but a home can present special challenges. Even if you don’t need to worry about family or pets, simple things like phone calls can be harder to ignore at home.

Are You Personally Comfortable With the Idea?

There are plenty of people who aren’t comfortable with the idea of bringing their work home with them — even if they work from home. It’s a personal preference to keep meetings outside of the place where you live and it’s perfectly reasonable to say no. There are alternatives out there, even in situations when a coffee shop won’t work: some buildings will rent out conference rooms on an hourly basis or you may have a coworking space near you.

There is something to be said for your clients not knowing where you live, especially if you work with most of them online — it’s the reason that some web workers choose to use a P.O. box as their mailing address. There are both privacy and security issues involved. Don’t let yourself feel pressured into letting someone into your home that you don’t feel comfortable having there, even if you work with that person.

Do You Want Your Client to Come to Your Home?

If you come to the conclusion that meeting with a client or a co-worker at your home makes sense, go for it. You may want to do a little prep to make sure that your home office is ready to welcome someone other than you — personally, I’m cleaning up and even dragging the vacuum into my office for the first time in forever. Have a chat with family or roommates to make sure that distractions will be kept to a minimum.

Do you stage meetings in your home office?

Image by Flickr user Fabio Bruna

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According to Martin, a manspace is a custom-built hangout where a man can work, play and generally be himself. In his brief talk, he describes how he built a home office at the bottom of his garden for around $3,000, as well as name-checks Superman, Batman, Elvis and Hemingway as legendary owners of manspaces.

Surprisingly, in investigating over 50 contemporary manspacers, Martin discovers that manspaces are largely about articulating a passion — everything from Japanese tearooms to full-size boxing rings — concluding that each space was intricately designed to reflect its owner.

In a related piece, The New York Times recently ran a fascinating photo slideshow on the “Decline and Fall of the Bachelor Pad,” noting that the recession has curtailed the more excessive tendencies of the manspace.

One industrious architect has purchased a 900-square-foot loft space, which he’s refitted into a live/work space, where private “pod” bedrooms sit alongside large shared workspaces in a kind of “coworking plus” configuration.

Though I divide my time between coworking and working from home, I’m fascinated by the home working environments of web workers. My own workspace at home is a spartan $100 IKEA table and a Macbook, but I know others with much more elaborately personalized spaces.

Of course, “manspace” is an unnecessarily gender-biased term. I don’t believe there’s any fundamental difference here in the underlying motivations of women or men.

I would love to run a series of posts on people’s various home working environments and, more importantly, how they’ve gone about personalizing and customizing them to reflect their passions. Leave your stories and thoughts in the comments, and I’ll see if I can follow up with some more in-depth posts.

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And I’m not just saving money on gifts. My first stop is usually an office supply store, because Black Friday can also be a great day to buy web worker gear for bargain prices. Here’s a look at what you might find in stores for your business needs this year.

Of course, when we think web work tools, most of us probably think computers first. But despite the ubiquitous ads for computer sales on Black Friday, a computer may actually be the most difficult tool to find a good deal on. Web workers need computing power, and most Black Friday sale computers at the major chain stores are vastly underpowered so they can be advertised for cheap prices. Unless you are looking for a basic netbook to make travel more convenient, I recommend going directly to the sites of computer manufacturers like Dell  to shop their sales on more powerful machines suitable for work.

Unfortunately if you are shopping for a Mac, even on Black Friday there won’t be much of a deal to be had. Apple typically runs a small sale with discounts of around 10 percent. (The supposedly leaked ad that has been circulating online showing much bigger discounts from Apple on Black Friday this year is widely believed to be a fake). Other than that, a few retailers usually get creative and offer bonuses as a way of creating “sales” on Apple machines. Best Buy will be offering a $150 gift card with the purchase of a 13” MacBook for $999 on Black Friday this year, for instance.

If you are in need of computer peripherals, however, get your credit card ready to do some work! The sales on some of these items can save a web worker a lot of money on very necessary items.

(Please note that there are no OfficeMax deals in this article because that retailer has issued legal threats against all sites that published details of its Black Friday ads early, so that store’s information is not available for comparison in articles such as this one.)

Some of these deals will be available online starting on Thanksgiving Day, but not all of these items can be purchased online, so you’ll need to carefully check the ad for any item you select. Almost all Black Friday items are “limited quantity, no raincheck” sales, so you’ll want to prioritize your shopping and get out there (or log on) early.

External Storage: Portable and desktop hard drives are great deals on Black Friday. For desktop storage, 1TB and 1.5TB drives will be on sale at virtually all of the office and department chains for bargain prices. Portable drives can also be had for well under $100 for 500GB. WWD Pick: 1.5TB Western Digital My Book Home Edition desktop drive for $119.99 at Best Buy, or the 500GB Western Digital My Passport Essential portable drive for $69.99, a doorbuster at Staples.

Monitors: Black Friday is a great time to pick up a cheap monitor. Like with the computers being advertised, the advertised low prices often mean less-than-stellar performance, so shop carefully. WWD Pick: Dell 20” widescreen for $99 at Best Buy (regularly $159.99).

Flash Memory: Flash memory in the form of cards or USB drives is often sold at deep discounts as Black Friday doorbusters (items with extremely limited quantities and no rainchecks given) to get people to come out to a store and shop for more expensive items while they are there. Because of this, it can be one of the best deals of the whole shopping weekend. I stock up on SD cards at insane prices every year on Black Friday. WWD Pick: USB drive, CF, microSD, and SD card selection on sale at Staples. (Get there early — I can tell you from experience that they go fast!)

Digital Media: If you use CD/DVD media, Black Friday is the time to head to an office supply store to stock up. Both the media and cases for them will be on major sales at all the office supply chains. WWD Pick: Staples 100pk CD-R for $4.98 (doorbuster price) or Staples CD/DVD Jewel Cases 50pk for $4.99, both at Staples.

Keyboards/Mice: These computer accessories can be had for deep discounts on Black Friday. Going for the slightly higher-priced ones will get you a huge step up in quality, however. WWD Pick: Microsoft 4000 Wireless Laser Keyboard/Mouse Set for $29.99 doorbuster price at Staples (regularly $79.99).

Printers: If you need a printer but don’t need the latest and greatest high-end model, Black Friday is the time to get it. Older printer models are offered on deep discounts to holiday shoppers to secure their future business as ink cartridge customers. Depending on whether you want wireless, laser or inkjet, and intend to print photos or not, there are a variety of options available. But check prices versus online vendors such as Amazon, because not all the advertised prices are actually deals. WWD Pick: HP OfficeJet Pro 8500 for $149.98 at Staples and Office Depot (regularly $299.99).

Routers: Whether you are looking for a portable router to pack on the road for setting up impromptu networks, or an upgrade to your home office network, Staples is the place to head on Black Friday for solid router choices with good discounts. WWD Picks: Netgear WNR1000 RangeMax 150 Wireless Router for $34.99 (portable) and Linksys Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router for $89.99 (office), both at Staples.

Battery Back-up: There’s nothing more annoying than having a power blink reboot your computer unexpectedly. Battery back-up units are some of the biggest Black Friday bargains, available for over 50 percent off at multiple stores. WWD Pick: APC 550VA Battery Backup Unit for $24.99 at Office Depot (regularly $59.99).

Shredders: A wide variety of these are on sale at office supply stores, but be sure to check the features. The biggest difference is in how long they can run before they need to cool off (for as long as an hour in some cases). Most sale models are good for only light home office shredding, typically under two minutes at a time. WWD Pick: Omnitech 15 sheet Cross-Cut Shredder for the $39.99 doorbuster price at Staples (regularly $129.99).

Labelers: If you have made a resolution to get organized, Black Friday is the time to pick up a basic electronic labeler for your office. I use my Brother PT-1290 for file folders, plastic storage containers and power cords. Brother sells that basic unit at 75 percent off on Black Friday to get new users captured as a market for the expensive labeler cartridges. WWD Pick: Brother PT-1290 for $9.99 at Office Depot & Staples (regularly $39.99).

Office Furniture: A few basic office furniture items are on sale, but desk chairs are an especially popular sale item at the office supply chains on Black Friday. 50 percent off is not an uncommon discount. You can pick up a low quality chair extremely cheaply, or get an affordable price on a high quality one. WWD Pick: Realspace Harrington High-back Bonded Leather Chair, $99.99 at Office Depot (regularly $199.99).

Phones: DECT 6.0 phones are great for avoiding interference with wireless routers in home offices and for adding extensions where there aren’t installed lines. Lots of options are available on Black Friday depending on whether you need an answering machine and how many extensions you need. WWD Pick: Panasonic KX-TG9333T DECT 6.0 Expandable Cordless Phone with Answering System for $49.99 at Staples (regularly $89.99).

Will you be deal hunting on Black Friday? What will you be looking for a deal on?

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But working from home and having your home repaired can be a chaotic mix. It tends to destroy your routine, concentration and even the quality of your work. So what can we home office workers do to prevent that from happening?

Use noise canceling headphones or other protective gear. This is the most straightforward approach, particularly if noise is your biggest problem. In a previous post, WWD reader Mau recommended the earmuff hearing protectors typically found in shooting ranges. If the noise isn’t too loud, maybe ever a pair of earplugs is enough.

Play some music or other non-distracting background noise. I’ve also tried drowning out the noise with music, preferably something instrumental or with foreign language vocals so that I’m not distracted when I write. If you’re solving the noise issue this way, just stick to whatever kind of music allows you to work. Alternatively, you can play white noise or soothing nature sounds. (Here’s a good collection of nature sounds. The menu on the left also points to ambient sound downloads, including white noise.)

Watch out for more than just the noise. Apart from auditory distractions, there are a lot of other things you need to look out for to stay safe. It may depend on the types of repairs you’re having, but there’s usually a lot of dust particles flying around, especially if you’re working with wood. There may also be materials, tools and other equipment lying around your house during this time.

Change your location. The great thing about being a web worker is that we can take our work with us wherever we go. As much as possible, I would look for a room or area that won’t be repaired for that day. That room then becomes my temporary office.

But sometimes, this approach isn’t enough. If you can leave someone you trust to monitor the repairs, you can work outside your home. This is an important move if you need to be available via voice chatting or conference calls. Just make sure you can be easily contacted if you need to make certain decisions regarding the repairs.

Change your work hours. Another strategy that’s been successful for me is to change my working hours around the repair schedule. I take advantage of the handyman’s rest days by working more hours on those days. Also, during his workdays, I get up very early and start work before he does. Alternatively, you can work during the evenings.

Make the effort to do routine home maintenance tasks. It might also help to take preventive measures by performing home maintenance tasks regularly. This may help you spot most potential problems along the way rather than force you to deal with one big problem that requires several noisy days or weeks to fix.

Have you ever worked from home during extensive repairs? What did you to do make sure your work got done despite the distractions?

Image by mihow from sxc.hu

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Interestingly, I never had these problems when I worked in an onsite office: I always managed to adjust my chair to suit my needs, and have my monitor at the right level. Since I spend a lot of time out of my home office anyway, my office setup only has an impact on the sedentary part of my work week; the rest is, as they say, in the lap of the gods.

Do You Have Problems with Your Home Office Ergonomics?

A range of symptoms can indicate that your home office is not as comfortable — or suited to your body type or posture — as it could be. Do you find yourself beset by:

• headaches
• neck pain
• back pain
• tired or sore eyes
• numbness in the hands, legs or specific muscle groups
• tension in joints, often the neck, shoulders, fingers and wrists
• device frustration

This last point can be the tip-off that if you don’t do something soon, you’ll suffer more than a bad mood. If you find the use of one of your devices — your mouse, keyboard, monitor, scanner and so on — is frustrating you, it may be a sign that your body is having to work harder than it’s used to, or than it needs to, in order to get your work done. In short, it can be a sign of unnecessary strain. Perhaps your scanner’s a few inches too far from your chair, or maybe you need a mouse mat to facilitate smooth mouse movement and stop your fingers straining to push the device around your desktop.

They seem like such small points, but when you need to operate these devices for eight hours every day, it’s important to get things right.

DIY Home Office Ergonomics

Yes, you can arrange to have an ergonomics expert come into your home and assess your workspace — some of the more liberal (or is that just sensible?) employers will even foot the bill for this service on behalf of their remote employees.

But you can alter your home ergonomics for the better yourself. There’s a a lot of information out there to help you set up your workspace to meet your ergonomic requirements. I found a handy Office Ergonomics Checklist and a discussion of conventional ergonomics wisdom as compared with current research results. Both of thee resources helped me adjust my workspace to my specific requirements. You could also try changing things up with a standing desk.

Ergonomics On the Go

This is all well and good for those days when we’re at home or in an office, but what about ergonomics for those who are working on the road? It would seem that the basic advice that applies in your fixed workspace should be applied as best as possible on the road:

• sit comfortably with your feet resting on something (the floor? a bag?)
• try to ensure you have lower back support
• set a decent amount of space between your eyes and the monitor; although the “arm’s length” rule isn’t achievable on a laptop, make sure you’re not cramped
• have your screen at a workable level of brightness, and try to avoid having light shining directly on it
• make sure your arms are comfortable — not pushed back against your body or out to the sides
• try resting your elbows or forearms on arm rests if your seat has them
• take regular breaks: stretch your arms and hands, get up and stretch your legs, rest your neck, look around
• try not to work for long, unbroken periods

How about you? How have you improved your home — or remote — office ergonomics?

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Those thoughts can be as simple as “don’t forget to email Pete about that invoice” or as intricate as a new angle on an idea I’d been working on before. They’re basically the random things my brain spews out while I’m trying to focus on something else. I know I’m not alone — a lot of people experience the same thing.

Through a long process of trial and error, I’ve found that the best way to deal with these random thoughts — thoughts that are important and valuable, but unrelated to the task I’m working on — is to note them down. This way, I can be sure I won’t forget them, but I also reduce their interruption into my focus on other tasks.

For this reason, the handiest tool in my home office is a pen and paper. I’ve tried using online tools to note down my ideas, but I find that going online to add a task to my to-do list is like opening a door to the world: The temptation to check the news, weather, or my email is often too great to resist.

The problem with noting these random — but important — tasks in something as simple as my text editor is that, as a result of my scattered approach to work, I usually end up with so many apps open, and so many things going on, that I can forget I have my list hidden behind five other panes. Sometimes, I have trouble finding it at all.

My pen and paper are always at my elbow, so I don’t have any difficulty finding them. I like the fact that they’re physically separate from my computer: the place where I do my work. That physical separation helps me mentally divorce these thoughts from what I’m doing, which prevents them from distracting me from the task at hand.

My notepad is my “random thoughts” area, so I treat it as such; my tasks lists are online, well-planned and carefully formulated. But my notepad is a space that’s dedicated to shards of thoughts, germs of ideas that I know need more work and attention before I can do something with them.

And I do give them that attention — sooner or later. Usually, I try to take a look at my list when I get to a break point in what I’m doing. I can take the easy-to-do stuff, prioritize it, and add it to my task list immediately. And I can check my schedule to see when I can set aside half an hour for thinking more about the new angle for that previously concepted idea. Perhaps I’ll also take the opportunity to find my brainstorming notes for that idea and add the new thought to them, ensuring that I keep all the thoughts about that project together.

Once I’ve sorted through the items on my page, I turn it over and start a new page: a clean slate for new random thoughts that may occur in the next work period. So, my pen and notepad are the handiest tools in my home office.

What about you? What remote working tool do you value most?

Photo credit: stock.xchng user RAWKU5.

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According to a study from the Light Right Consortium, “People who are more satisfied with their lighting rate the space as more attractive, are happier, and are more comfortable and satisfied with their environment and work.” As far as home office improvements go, investing your time on proper lighting seems like it’s worth it.

Here are some pointers to get started on a well-lit office:

Increase amounts of natural light. The best way to light a home office is through natural light, not only because it’s brighter and more even than artificial lighting, but also because it’s free. I’m glad that my home office seems to do well in this area, because one wall is a glass sliding door to an open veranda, while another wall has a large window.

If you don’t have the benefit of natural light in your office, it seems like common sense to compensate for it by using bulbs that replicate daylight (full-spectrum bulbs). But research shows that such bulbs only make a difference if you’re performing tasks that require fine discrimination of color (if you do print design work, for example).

Opt for indirect lighting. Don’t imitate corporate cubicle farms by installing direct, parabolic lighting. Professors at Cornell University conducted a study (pictures here) that showed the negative effects of these lights in an office. These lights were bothersome and made the subjects’ eyes tire and lose focus more easily. Apparently, direct parabolic lights also lessens productivity (as self-reported by employees). For the effect on your eyes alone, it’s better to opt for lensed indirect lighting for your ceiling fixtures.

Plan your furniture layout well. The first thing you have to consider when rearranging furniture is preventing reflected glare on your monitor.

I mentioned above that I have a lot of natural light flowing into my office. This presents a disadvantage, too, because too much direct natural light produces reflected glare on the screen. This lessens my options for monitor placement. My solution to this is to place translucent blinds on the windows to diffuse the sunlight a bit.

Here are other things you need to consider for your layout:

• If you have other glossy or shiny surfaces in the office, make sure that any reflected glare they have is out of your line of sight.
• Use large furniture such as shelves and dividers to maximize or block bright sources of light, depending on your needs.
• For offices that are openly connected to other rooms (no wall), include the lighting in the other room in your plans since it affects the lighting quality in your office.
• Paint your walls in bright colors. Just make sure that they’re not too bright or glossy, producing glare.

Properly space your light fixtures. When planning your fixtures, remember that your entire office should be uniformly lit. Watch out for areas that might be too dark or too bright. Avoid placing fixtures within your usual line of sight, and don’t install them within three inches of a wall (they’ll create sharp areas of shadow and light).

Have as much control as you can. If you can afford it, install dimmers and other methods to control brightness. When used properly, these devices can conserve energy and allow you to adjust your lighting as natural light changes throughout the day. Also, if you’ll be using desk lamps, make sure that you can adjust them on three planes.

Although improving lighting quality in the home office sounds like a lot of work, it’s much better than having a building’s existing lights forced on you. I hope the points I’ve raised above have been — pardon the pun — enlightening.

How well did you plan for the lighting in your home office? What effect does it have on your work?

Image by CraigPJ from sxc.hu

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You may need to help the younger ones with homework or teach them study skills. You may need to switch into chauffeur mode to get the kids to sports, music lessons or club activities. Everyone has different needs and situations. With that in mind, I’ve come up with a list of suggestions of things that you can do to keep your kids happy and meet your deadlines:

• Sign up the kids for after-school programs: Some schools have a program on campus. Many nearby daycare centers send vans to pick up the kids.
• Hire a student: Some high schoolers finish school early enough to hang with your kids and help with homework. It helps if the high schooler can drive so they can come to your place and take the kids to the park or the library. This approach worked well for me last year. If it appeals to you, check your local colleges as well. Colleges may have a bulletin board or some other job notification system where you can advertise this kind of work.
• Make a schedule: This is the approach I’m now using, and so far, so good. When the elementary kids arrive home, they have about 30 minutes to chill and eat snacks. Then one hour of homework, quiet and reading time. That time frame removes the temptation to rush through homework to go outside or do something fun. If they finish homework early, they still have to wait the full hour before playtime begins.
• Take turns with other parents: Find other work-from-home parents to take turns in watching the kids. That way, you can get a couple of afternoons to yourself.
• Pay another parent to help: When I still had a corporate job and my son needed to be somewhere right before I got off work, a good friend took him for me while I picked him up. Though we do things for each other all the time, this regular carpooling warranted a little extra.
• Treat the afternoon as family time: Give yourself a break and enjoy spending a few hours with your kids, preparing for dinner and helping with homework. Finish your work in the evening after they’ve gone to bed. Instead of lunch breaks, take late afternoon breaks. But still, walk away from the computer for at least five minutes several times a day for health’s sake. Oh, and be careful not to get food and drink on the keyboard.
• Set aside time on the weekend: If your situation doesn’t give you enough time during the week, pick a time on the weekend to do your work. It helps to have a home office so the kids know not to disturb mom or dad while they’re working, unless it’s an emergency (note that a kid’s definition of “emergency” will probably not be the same as yours, so you might want to discuss that beforehand). No home office? Create a work area that signals to the kids that mom or dad is at work.

Web working gives parents the flexibility to be there for their kids and put family first. They don’t have to explain themselves to coworkers and bosses when they need to take care of family business. I love working out of my home office as it provides a well-rounded life.

How do you manage your family around your web working career?

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Of course, technically, this rule doesn’t apply to those of us who can also work remotely — if we really want to, we can print everything in color and on heavy stock, single-sided in our home offices. But of course this low-print policy is also sensibly applied in my remote office as well as at company HQ.

The die-hard anti-corporate web worker may not want to hear this, but as it turns out, many corporate office policies may come in handy in your remote workplace. I can think of three very common policies that can also fit well into a remote work philosophy.

The Paperless Office

The concept of the paperless office isn’t new, and it’s popular even though few of the organizations that strive to achieve it actually do.

Why Would You Do It?
The paperless office is said to have a number of benefits: it’s neat; it’s cheap; it promotes environmental consciousness; it can help you keep track of ideas, content and work; and you never find yourself without your calendar/notebook/pen/address book.

Why Wouldn’t You Do It?
Although the sustainability issues cited as an argument for paperless offices are valid, the sustainability of the technology required to run a truly paperless office is surely just as much of an issue.

But the reason why most people who reject the paperless approach do so seems to be work practice. If you’re used to working on paper to brainstorm, plan, work out process flows, and so on, you may have trouble transitioning those practices to the electronic environment. The simple preference to do some of your work off the computer as a means to put yourself in a different frame of mind may also play a role in keeping some tasks on paper.

What Might Work?
An approach that reduces paper usage in the name of cost and the environment, but still allows you to do the tasks you love on paper might be a good way to align your home office more closely with a paperless ideal. The added features of the many handy applications that can help you cut down your paper usage may just seal the deal!

The Professional Dress Policy

I was once presented with a 30-page document on attire for women in one place I worked. Fortunately, most office dress policies are less restrictive.

Why Would You Do It?
Adhering to some degree to your company’s office attire policy in the home office can help you feel like you’re “on company time”. It can also boost motivation and provide a sense of professionalism in an environment that’s often intensely personal. And if you need to meet with clients throughout the day, it might be a necessity.

Even wearing your organizations branded t-shirt can help you identify more closely with that company, its shared sense of purpose, its team and its culture when you’re physically distant from it.

Why Wouldn’t You Do It?
It’s fair to say that a large proportion of remote workers stay out of the office specifically to avoid policies like those surrounding attire. Some feel they get more done, and feel more relaxed, in their favorite old jeans and much-loved slippers. For many, wearing whatever they like is one of the key fringe benefits of working remotely: if they can do it, they will.

What Might Work?
Each of us probably knows what works for us personally, but sometimes, if I find I’m lacking motivation, I make myself presentable, leave my home office, and head out to work in a local coffee shop for a while. This reminds me that I’m still part of the world, and usually helps me get back on track.

The Charity-leave Policy

My employer offers staff leave of a few days a year to undertake charity work, and though not everyone does it, my company’s not alone in this kind of initiative.

Why Would You Do It?
If your employer offers this leave, you should consider it among your entitlements, like sick leave or holidays. It will give you a chance to contribute to a cause you’re passionate about, may provide an opportunity to engage with people in your local community that you wouldn’t otherwise meet, can help you get to know people who share your interests, can help to refresh your approach to life (and work!), and so on.

Contributing to a good cause can expand your personal horizons, shift your perspective, and renew your sense of self and purpose — and these are just some of the potential benefits!

If you work for yourself or your employer doesn’t offer this kind of leave, taking time off work to undertake work for a not-for-profit organization may be beyond your budget, but that doesn’t mean you can’t consider slotting it into your schedule somehow. Perhaps you’ll need to do your bit out of hours, in smaller blocks than whole days, or over a weekend.

But two or three days’ worth of charity work a year should be doable for many of us — and given the potential benefits, in terms of the social aspect as well as the personal satisfaction you’ll gain, it’s definitely worth it.

Why Wouldn’t You Do It?
The time-cost associated with taking a couple of days’ leave to work for a not-for-profit organization is undoubtedly a major hurdle for any of us, but especially for the self-employed. For them, time is actually money, and time off may create holes in the cashflow that can be difficult to manage.

Even those whose employers offer social responsibility leave may have trouble justifying it at certain times of year. Some may feel a sense of obligation to bosses who “allow” them to work remotely. But just as we all have busy times, many of us also have quieter times at work, and these can provide a good opportunity to contribute our time to a good cause. After all, if you’re not going to be achieving much in the office anyway, why not get out and challenge yourself in another way?

What Might Work?
I really think donating some time to a good cause is worthwhile. You may feel you’re too busy — in life and at work — to donate your time to anything other than relaxing, and you might think that finding the right kind of work will be too difficult. But if you don’t do it, you’ll deny yourself the personal benefits of contributing to a good cause. If you can’t dedicate a whole day to charity or not-for-profit, you might consider a couple of hours a week, or a day on a weekend. You won’t regret it!

Do you apply any office policies in your remote work? Have any worked for you?

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I shouldn’t have been surprised — I’d told her earlier in the week that we might become more productive if we work near each other. At that time it was merely a suggestion. I didn’t think that one day I would just wake up and find it a reality.

“Oh well, there’s nothing wrong with that,” I thought to myself. It’s not like we didn’t discuss it. What’s the worst that could happen? In fact, I believed we were going to be more motivated and productive.

A few days later, I realized that every benefit of coworking with my partner came paired with a disadvantage.

Inspiration vs. Distraction

As Darrell suggested in a previous post, you should pick a coworking partner that you respect and admire. I knew I could learn from my partner’s work ethic and her ability to make connections. I find her inspiring, but having her around is distracting too. Every time she moved or made a sound, I would shoot involuntary glances to her side of the room. To be fair, she told me that although she’s motivated by my passion for work she got annoyed at how loud I type.

This meant that we needed some physical barriers so that we could block out distracting movements and sounds. At the same time, we didn’t want to completely separate our workspaces. Our solution was to keep our desks six feet apart, rather than side-by-side, and place a small shelf of books in between. From where I’m sitting I can see her monitor, keyboard and hands without being distracted with the other movements she makes. Also, she can barely hear me type.

Common Ground vs. Conflicts

Having similar goals and habits can work for you, but there will always be  conflict no matter how compatible you think you are. For example, we agree on the color of the walls (orange), the position of the furniture and having a small garden behind the sliding door. Things we disagree on: everything else.

The workaround to this issue is to know your priorities as a team and as individuals. Do you need a completely silent work environment or can you adjust to soft ambient music? Is your need for a large shelf as important as her need for more leg room? There will always be compromises. Knowing your priorities can identify the compromises that will least affect you.

If you must argue, pick your battles well. An argument over who makes the coffee is not as important as a constructive discussion on how the other person’s habits interfere with your work.

Collaboration vs. Independence

It’s hard to create privacy when you’re working in one room. This can be a good thing, since you can help each other out of time sinks as well as share ideas. Too much collaboration, on the other hand, can be suffocating.

Facilitating collaboration was easy. The whiteboard in the office allowed us to write our to-do lists for the day and the rest of the week. If I need help with something, I just write it on the box labeled “Requests.” She then responds in a way that was most convenient for both of us whether it’s through email, a conversation, or Twitter.

Even then, we’d often think of a question that needed a quick reply. Asking out loud worked at first, but during peak productive moments we’d rather work uninterrupted. How would she know if it was okay to disturb me (and vice versa)?

Here’s the solution we came up with: a simple “DND” under my name in the whiteboard shows that I can’t be bothered until the “DND” has come off. The same goes for her. Now, it’s almost a reflex to look at the whiteboard and check for the “DND” before I speak.

Coworking with my partner was much harder than I expected. The good news is that with continued effort, we’re slowly getting to the point where the arrangement is making us stronger — both as a couple and as teleworkers.

Have you ever tried sharing a home office with your spouse or partner? What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?

Image by nyuszika from sxc.hu

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Some web workers go to great lengths to mask that our office and home are one and the same. We can use P.O. box or mailbox suite addresses, and install separate phone lines that we can always answer with a business salutation. We might keep rigidly to business hours and avoid any reference in conversation that would reveal our office/home marriage.

Of course, there is another option. We can let it all hang out, so to speak, and freely acknowledge our home office location and its attendant benefits (and disadvantages) to the people we do business with.

Which of these options is best to use is somewhat a function of the industry that each of us works in and our own personal comfort level. Personally, I have chosen the second option — complete openness. There are several reasons why:

It’s cheaper. All those additional services, like a mailbox suite and additional phone line, cost money that I would much rather spend on other things like a new computer gadget.

It’s too much work to pretend. Keeping up a pretense about where my office is just takes energy I’d rather put into my actual work. And besides, I know I’d eventually make a mistake anyway and let the secret out, so why make the effort to keep it a secret at all?

It tells me what people respect. If someone dismisses me because I work from a home office, I probably didn’t want to work with them anyway. People who respect me and the quality of my work will want to work with me, no matter where my office is located. Being upfront about where I work helps sort out who respects me, and not just the office they think I have.

It makes it easier for the next web worker. Having a good experience dealing with someone that they know is working from home will hopefully lay the groundwork with people to have a better attitude towards the next web worker they encounter.

It’s my life. The bottom line is that I work from my home office because it allows me to blend my work and my personal life in a way that works for me. Pretending otherwise would defeat the purpose of that. It would remove some of the very flexibility that I have sought in being a web worker, such as the ability to be able to care after school for my autistic 6-year-old daughter while I work.

Everyone has to do what works for them, but I have chosen to be open with my web worker status. Yes, it can occasionally be awkward or get me dismissed by a few people who don’t understand the new world of web work. But I make no apologies and find that my candor serves me well in more situations than it hurts me.

How open are you with people you do business with about where your office is? Does this help or hinder you?

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I thought I’d share some tips gleaned from my latest move to a new desktop. My way isn’t necessary the best way, but it may give you some ideas when it comes time for you to make the switch. Here are the steps that I took.

1. Back up your data. Use an online backup service like BackBlaze or Mozy. (Solo web workers should have an offsite backup solution, anyway) I also have an external drive that does nothing but back up my computer’s data. The free built-in Microsoft Windows Synctoy took care of my syncing. Make sure you synchronize everything, including the data on any mobile devices.
2. Take a computer inventory. Run System Information for Windows (SIW), Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder and Belarc Advisor.  Save the output files in Gmail or someplace where you can access it from any computer. These free applications create a list of installed software, license keys, hardware inventory, network information and other details. These apps are all free.
3. Put the computers near each other. This makes the move easier and allows you to check what’s on the old computer and install it on the new PC and compare the setups. It’s also worth checking which apps are used frequently. While the inventory software lists all the installed applications, you might not need to exactly duplicate your setup. The key is to get the important and most frequently used tools and software installed so you can get up and running on the new machine. Then, if you find you need one of the apps you didn’t move over to the new machine later, you can install it. Don’t pressure yourself to get everything installed.
4. Install the applications and tools. Dig up all your software, download the ones that don’t have a CD/DVD and download updated software. Some of my software (Palm Desktop, for example) is so old that I didn’t bother using the original CD/DVD to install it. Instead, I went to the companies’ web sites to download the latest versions.
5. Share folders over the network. Turn on network file-sharing by opening Explorer. Find the folders you want to copy to your new computer, right-click the folder and select “Share.” Look for the option to share the folder (it’s different in Windows XP and Vista). Doing this, I shared the folder with all my work documents so that I had instant access to the documents I needed without waiting for the online backup to do its job. The online backup application then restored the rest of the files.
6. Copy the data from old to new.
7. Start using the new computer. I plan to keep the old computer nearby for a little while so if I run into something I need to customize or verify, I can look at it and update the new computer accordingly.
8. Set up a backup system. Whether you used one before or not, put a backup system in place. Even new computers mess up and you never know when some disaster decides to make life harder for your home. It can happen. I was in my grandparents’ house when it caught fire.

Having many of my applications and data in the cloud made this the easiest and fastest desktop transition ever.

What other ways can you ease and speed up the transition from old computer to new?

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