How coworking made me a better person!
Coworking has expected and unexpected benefits. The obvious advantages are the reasons why the concept has become so popular in a short period of time. The unobvious advantages are what some people have been lucky to experience.
I have been a freelance writer for almost a decade now and have been working from home for most of these years. After I had quit my last job, it was refreshing to be at home, waking up at a chosen time and calmly getting down to write in my comfortable study without having to travel an hour and a half. No pressing attire, no compulsion to look a certain way and no need to deal with tons of people, most of whom would be short of acquaintances and far from being friends. The perils of the corporate world aside, working alone and at home certainly augured well for time management.
Over the years, the three most significant fallouts of working at home have been isolation, weight gain and coalescing of my personal and professional life. Social connect was minimal and restricted to the occasional gatherings of friends. Family time and work time, personal chores and household tasks were all jumbled. There was a schedule every day, segregating work and life but it was not a physical one. The transition from work to life and back was merely psychological, of walking from one room to another.
Weight gain was perhaps the most worrisome fallout. The lack of physical movement worsened an already sedentary lifestyle. This coupled with lack of social connect was affecting my psychological wellbeing. Being a little cynical was perhaps the least of the concerns. The other troubling reality was a degree of helplessness when something went amiss. Internet outage, damaged phone, a kaput desktop and crashed laptop, all these are realities any self employed professional or entrepreneur working alone would have to deal with, more often than one would want.
All that changed when I opted for coworking. Suddenly, I was in a place full of people and all of them were passionate about their work, gentle towards others since no one had a fight or conflict of interest. Spending a little time to get to the place is refreshing. A short ride is better than waltzing from the bedroom to the study. Coworking has made me more efficient, it has helped me to socialise with people hailing from diverse professional backgrounds and there is always someone to troubleshoot the typical technical problems. I haven’t lost a ton of weight but I feel lighter on my feet and am more active now.
