Productivity Tips

Reasons to Take Work Outside of the Office

Written by Jay Shapiro for Gaebler Ventures

You set up your own business to escape the confines of a nine to five job and the restrictions of the office environment. Ironically, now that you're your own boss you find you spend even more time at a desk than ever. It's time to take work outside of the workplace.

You used to dream of being your own boss.

You probably envisioned having lots of time off and having plenty of people doing things for you. It probably didn't quite work out that way, did it. Chances are you're spending just as many hours at a desk as you did when you worked for your old boss. It's time to make a change.

Sometimes being in the same environment for extended periods of time can thwart our creativity. The 'same four walls' effect can dull our inspiration and make our thinking sluggish. Not to mention the fact that being at a desk, especially when using a computer, can cause RSI (repetitive strain injury).

The good news is that it's now easier than ever to make our work portable. Mobile phone technology and laptops allow us to access the internet and keep in touch with everything related to our business wherever we are.

Here's why you need to get out and about:

• It can be damaging to your physical health to be at a desk all day long.
• It can be damaging to your mental and emotional health to be at a desk all day long.
• Being in the same environment isn't conducive to creativity
• You can forget what's going on in the outside world
• You lose touch with 'people'

Here's how to take work with you into the outside world:

• Take your laptop and your mobile phone and go sit in a field or a café or take a train journey. Go anywhere that isn't the office. Stay in bed! Sit in your garden. Take the kids to the pool or the beach.
• Arrange to meet clients at a restaurant instead of the office.
• Meet business associates on site or at a café.

From an early age we are formed by convention and conditioned to be and act in a way that conforms. We think work, we think office. Because of this we find it hard to accept that we could work just as well, if not better, sitting outside a bistro or on a friend's patio as we do when we are at our desks.

If your line of work requires you to be inspired and creative there's nothing better than getting out of the office. There's only so much visual inspiration you can glean from being in a confined space. Take a walk in the woods and the combination of natural colors may well provide you with the right theme for that organic food product you're designing the logo for. Stroll through the city and the architectural shapes could trigger the idea for a contemporary piece of furniture.

The world is your palette, just being in it you will be bombarded with visual stimuli. Locked behind a door with a screen in front of you doesn't offer you that.

Get outside and get working. It won't even feel like you are!

Jay Shapiro is a freelance writer based in the UK. Jay has a particular interest in the emotive aspects of the entrepreneur's character. "Alongside the nuts and bolts of business, the character of the person is often the ingredient responsible for success."

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