Co-working, we get it, you sit around and work with other people and stuff. But why should that interest me? I’m happy working at home in my sweatpants with my cat. Well, working with your cat is great but working with real people in co-working is better. Here’s 7 reasons why:
1. Bring out your inner social butterfly
Coworking spaces are the home for networking opportunities. When you talk to strangers from other companies, you may find they have the solutions to challenges you’re currently facing. Not only that, but you never know if Susan who wears the colourful tights has a bright new idea for your business or if Joel with the big ears who sits behind you is a potential new lead. The important thing is that these opportunities to network exist daily in a coworking space waiting to be seized.
2. Get stuff done
If you’re heavily procrastinating, spinning on your desk chair and thinking about tacos, then surrounding yourself with people who are working hard should be the key to getting you motivated. When you spot Janice jotting down notes on her laptop, rummaging through paperwork with her phone glued to her ear making phone calls, you might feel a little bad if you’re sitting around counting jelly beans. That tiny pang of guilt is exactly what some people need to pick up the pace.
3. No man is an island
Working alone can heavily isolate you and deplete your mood. Being in a co-working space allows you to cover a social need by surrounding yourself with other like-minded business people. Although you work by yourself, members of a coworking space have picked the same independent lifestyle as you, which makes them the perfect people for you to be around.
4. Join the community
Connecting with others is a big part of why people are prepared to pay for a coworking space. This evidently beats working from home for free or renting an ordinary office with your only view being a brick wall and a tradie showing more than you’d ever want to see (we’ve all been there, not pretty). A coworking space comes with its own vibe as well as new and interesting people to make friends with along the way.
5. Work at 3 am …if you want
A huge advantage of a coworking space is it affords you time flexibility. An estimated 70% of office professionals prefer occasionally working outside normal business hours. In a co-working space, you can set your own schedule – extremely handy if you feel you work better at a particular time of day, whether that’s 9 am, 7 pm or 3 am – forget the haters. Do you.
6. Don’t pay for boring
If you’re an operation of two (just you and Margaret), you might be able to scrape $20 between both of you for McDonald’s at lunch, but you can’t buy or rent an office building – it ain’t cheap. It comes with no surprise that half of all coworkers are enjoying higher salaries. Partly because coworking eliminates having to take care of utility bills that drain your dollars and time, the staff take care of that for you – everyone wants to retain their hard-earned cash, which is why coworking space is the financially smart decision for you (and Margaret, of course).
7. Spark up some romance
A co-working space will not only fill your social needs, but it can also spark a potential office romance. Okay, this might be a stretch. But ask yourself this, do you want to take a chance to meet your significant other on Tinder where your date, “Lauren”, will most likely show up to be a catfish 55-year old hairy man, or spark a connection with a stranger over the office printer in a super cool co-working space? I’d go with number two – you’re welcome.
I bet working out of your home office doesn’t seem that great now does it? Check out Waterman Workspaces for awesome coworking space that’s sure to impress you way beyond these 7 reasons.
