One of the main reasons I became self-employed is that I really really wanted to work from home. It was pretty much my dream (hey, I like to aim low!). Happily now it’s finally happened it’s pretty much everything I hoped it would be – cake-baking afternoons and adoring puppy at my feet excepted. Recently, though, I had the opportunity to rent some workspace for a very reasonable amount of money and it’s got me thinking about the pros and cons of hot-desking and office renting.
Although I love working from home, I think it’s more a case of having the freedom to work how I want to, rather than specifically being obsessed with my own house. Or is it? I do wonder if renting workspace might feel a bit too much like ‘going to work’.
I can definitely see the potential benefits and attractions of renting workspace as a freelancer, though. Sometimes it’s just nice to get out of the house and have somewhere to go that isn’t your house. If you’re snowed under with work, though, going for a wander may not be an option, so renting a desk or an office could be a great way to combine escaping and working.
Additionally, the selling point of many rented workspaces is the ability to interact with others. Not having to do this is admittedly the selling point of working at home for some people, but a number of freelancers often comment that they find working at home alone all day really lonely. Without the distractions of home, too, I have to wonder if office renters and hot deskers get more done. Or do they just find their own office-based distractions?
I was quite surprised at how reasonable the prices of some rented workspaces are. I could have rented a whole office for £100 a month and it was huge and rather nice. It’s not a figure to be sniffed at but it’s nowhere near as eye-watering a sum as I’d imagined. You can also hot desk by the half-day for not much more than a tenner.
Hot desking means renting a desk by the day or half-day – somebody else might rent it the next day and so on.
So, lots of positives for renting workspace. Why am I not doing it then? Well, for one thing I am being quite tight these days and I don’t think renting office space is an essential for me at the moment. Would it actually be an investment for my business though?
I also fear that renting an office on a longish-term basis could just turn into a guilt-inducing exercise. Like the time I bought the exercise bike funnily enough. Would the rented space just make me feel guilty that I had spent money but wasn’t using it like the exercise bike did? The bike, incidentally, was freecycled a while ago. It can taunt someone else now and it looked ugly in the bedroom anyway.
The other problem would be, for me, that I only have one computer. Even though it’s a laptop, the idea of taking it to and from the office everyday puts me right off because the law of averages and me being fairly absent-minded sometimes guarantees it would get left somewhere one day, at which point all hell would break loose. You would not believe the number of books, bags and even bin liners full of cushions I have left on various modes of public transport in my time.
So, renting workspace long-term is out for now. I would be interested in hot-desking though in the interests of getting out and about occasionally – and occasionally is probably the key word here - and just seeing what it’s like. Newcastle-upon-Tyne is no London, though, and I can’t seem to find many options in this area. If anybody knows of any, please let me know!
Do you rent workspace or have you hot-desked? Please share your thoughts and experiences on this matter over on the forums.
Jun 3, 2009
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