WorkNooks. It's the Way to Go

Hot desking at home

I wrote this book on this shelf (I'm holding a template of it). It took me two years and a crack on the head, but I did it.

It was never an easy workspace. If I shoved my chair back without thinking I hit my partner's desk and disrupted his work. If I stood up without thinking I banged my head on the bookshelf above.

My feet froze to the floor half an hour after I sat down and I wore fingerless gloves to counteract the Northumberland gale blowing through the cracks in the adjacent window.

Getting out of my seat and out of this tiny room involved a sidelong wiggle and a few long strides to get over the (neatly) arranged boxes aligning the wall and the plug and socket tangle at the end of it.

Confidential phone calls were always a pain with one or the other of us having to writhe in and out this cubby-hole and plonk ourselves down elsewhere to work, but somehow we managed; we just worked with it. We lived in a charming two up, two down, so we had no choice. We had no more space.

When the Going Gets Tough…

But what doesn't nearly kill you as you trip over it on the way to and from your workspace only makes you stronger and more determined. I learned a lot about ownworking in adversity and remember my old writing hole with untinted glasses.

I made a template of my shelf before I left this little house to remind me of what I'd managed to do here despite its limitations.

Now I work in heaven. A whole room of my own. Not large or perfect but more than a shelf and no longer a boxroom. It's an office, my own home office. I count my blessings each time I sit down to work and when I'm feeling ungrateful, get out the old template and have a look at it.

People are Ingenious

I have always been interested in the people-place relationship and have subsequently gone on to do my own research into Sociospacial Reciprocity, which looks at the way humankind interact with their microsystems. These days I use Place Therapy in my own wellbeing practice, helping people to improve their settings, especially their work formations.

Ordinary people can be extraordinarily resilient and produce wonderful work in the most trying conditions. I've met people in their homes hot desking from the attic, the cellar, garage, shed, tented cabin, under the stairs, a space on the landing, corner of the kitchen table, top of the ironing board - even the car can be used as short term respite!

Known as worknooks, these places are simply convenient pockets of space home-based workers have utilised as makeshift desks. They’ve made the best of what's available to them and got on with it. It's in all of us to do the same, we're stronger and more creative than we think.

Jane Anderson PhD is an writer, researcher and practitioner in Sociospacial Reciprocity and Place Therapy from home. She’s been helping people create supportive, productive and sustainable environments at home and in the workplace for over 30 years.

www.jcaconsult.co.uk

www.linkedin.com/in/drjaneanderson/