I appreciate this post because the author seems to have gone through a lot of the same things as me, though I'm an introvert.
When I was working from home, I had great productivity, though the biggest problem for me was not being able to stop working. Work began when I woke up and usually kept on going after my wife came home from her job. And those times when I was able to stop physically working, my mind kept going anyway.
Eventually I rented a desk from a local IT company which filled the social void left by working at home. It was also just nice to be around other people to bounce ideas off. It was especially nice because neither of our jobs overlapped, so you could have some nice honesty when receiving feedback as the people in the office had no skin in the game.
After that I decided to just rent my own office and rent out some desks to other people looking for a similar situation. This has been fun and given me a seemingly long-term place to call home in a great part of Santa Barbara. Even though it is quite a bit more expensive than a desk in a coworking place in town, I don't mind it because I have control over the environment and enjoy the consistency of that.
All that said, Industrious sounds like the type of coworking I would like.
The two primary people have so far been from my friends of friends network.
I've had good luck offering them a free trial for a couple weeks to a month to see what they think. That way they can tangibly see if it will offer a benefit ahead of time rather than making them pay for something they might not end up using. It is also a good way to see if our personalities mesh as that is probably the most important factor in a good office mate.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 9.1 ms ] threadWhen I was working from home, I had great productivity, though the biggest problem for me was not being able to stop working. Work began when I woke up and usually kept on going after my wife came home from her job. And those times when I was able to stop physically working, my mind kept going anyway.
Eventually I rented a desk from a local IT company which filled the social void left by working at home. It was also just nice to be around other people to bounce ideas off. It was especially nice because neither of our jobs overlapped, so you could have some nice honesty when receiving feedback as the people in the office had no skin in the game.
After that I decided to just rent my own office and rent out some desks to other people looking for a similar situation. This has been fun and given me a seemingly long-term place to call home in a great part of Santa Barbara. Even though it is quite a bit more expensive than a desk in a coworking place in town, I don't mind it because I have control over the environment and enjoy the consistency of that.
All that said, Industrious sounds like the type of coworking I would like.
How did you manage to find tenants for your spare desks?
I've had good luck offering them a free trial for a couple weeks to a month to see what they think. That way they can tangibly see if it will offer a benefit ahead of time rather than making them pay for something they might not end up using. It is also a good way to see if our personalities mesh as that is probably the most important factor in a good office mate.