A dirty little secret of mine: when I procrastinate, I love to read through the archives of random blogs. I’ve found some pretty great blogs this way; most of the ones that I follow regularly were discovered through a series of random links from a friend’s now-defunct blog.
Today, I was breezing through older posts at But WHY Doesn’t it Grow on Trees?, when I found a post linking to this NYT article on coworking, freelancers working independently but sharing a common working space. In some ways it’s like renting a day office, but people in the coworking community are more focused on the creative and personal gains that can be achieved in a synergistic environment of talented, driven people rather than just the physical space.
My current job requires a lot of working from home, so I think it would be interesting to cowork occasionally. Work-wise I tend to be a loner. I’m perfectly happy completing tasks at my own pace with limited supervision. I could see coworking going either way for me- either I would be inspired by the hardworking people around me and my productivity would increase dramatically, or I would be even more distracted than I occasionally get working at home.
Overall, though, I would love to give coworking a try for the networking opportunities and community it provides.
Sadly, I have yet to find a coworking space here in Japan. Hm, maybe I should consider trying to start one up…
