Move your workspace, Increase productivity

Saturday, March 10, 2007 at 01:26pm by Brian Lash in Operations

It’s amazing what happens when you change your workspace. I always took that idea with a grain of salt. After all, if you work hard – if you’re passionate – why should you need a change of scenery to be productive?

I learned why last night.

One of my buddies – a collaborator on a new venture – was staying in a local church after hours; to fulfill a Business Ethics class community service requirement, he struck an agreement with the church that he would stay on-hand until dawn. (For those who aren’t familiar with the practice, churches often provide temporary shelter to needy individuals without homes of their own).

Our local church – maybe it’s a rule of thumb, I don’t know – requires that one person stay on duty over the night on those nights when it houses the homeless. Probably a liability thing.

At any rate, my partner was to spend a full night at the church. When he explained as much to me, he claimed it would be great time for us to work, and to do so peacefully – What’s more, it would be a neat opportunity to serve both the church and those less fortunate who were housed there.

I was skeptical …and naïve. Because last night became one of the most productive days in the venture’s young life.
We worked more than five hours between 11pm and 5am. We pitched ideas. Shot them down. Made cases for some. Argued others.

Five hours. Doesn’t sound so long, I know. But it was a solid block of time without distractions. Best, we had no phone interruptions. Not because we didn’t take our calls, but because it was so late that no one needed anything from us.

To put a number to our productivity, we agreed in advance to brainstorm questions for a game we’re developing. I would have been happy with 100; We left with nearly 250.

The experience has made a believer out of me – there’s something to be said for changing your workspace. For abandoning your office in lieu of a quiet retreat where you can think in peace.

Anyone can find his or her own way to accomplish as much, but churches are a compelling, affordable start. I’ve heard (but can’t confirm) that a church will “rent” an unused room – sometimes on a monthly basis – to a member of its congregation in exchange for a small donation. You pay the church and inadvertently help charity. It makes the most of otherwise idle space. That’s win-win.

And that’s precisely what happened last night: My partner and I paid nothing but our community service in exchange for a place to work that was quiet, cozy, and detached from our familiar workspaces only a few blocks away.

You may be a skeptic – I was too. But it’s worth asking yourself how you could benefit by moving your own workspace. Because it may do wonders.

Brian Lash is founder of The Tipping Blog and writes about the entrepreneurial experience at BrianLash.com.

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