Jane Green
The Official Home of New York Times Bestselling Author

Community Office Space

May 18th, 2017

For years I was happy working on my own at home, but that was before children, before the business of life, and most importantly, before technology.

What I have found, for some time, is that whilst we all like to think that technology is connecting us more than ever before, we are in fact growing more and more isolated, and a lack of human connection (that can go on for days if we work by ourselves at home), is leading us all to feeling increasingly lonely.

Just before Christmas, I lost the office space I had been using. I knew I wouldn’t be able to work at home, and didn’t like the idea of renting a room by myself. After some searching, I found a gorgeous space in my favorite part of town – the bit that still feels like a village, with restaurants and cafés steps from my office – and invited two friends to join me, one a writer, one not.

I started to decorate, finding lovely wallpaper online, and inexpensive furniture that made the office feel more like my living room than an office. I wanted a warm, cosy, beautiful space that I would want to spend time in, not a corporate hell hole filled with black and grey office furniture.

Within a couple of weeks, we writers (oh, okay it’s the fabulous Lauren Weisberger) realized it was too distracting working with someone who has a proper job, so we took the empty office next door and moved in there, finding three other people to fill the vacant spots next door, on short-term leases at bargain prices.

Others heard about our impromptu co-working creative office space, and asked if they could join. I spoke to the landlord and asked if he had more space. A double office across the hall, he said, and acres of unused space upstairs. May I renovate and decorate it, I asked, as his eyes lit up.

The decorating and furnishing of the office opposite is about to be finished (lovely grey grasscloth walls, wood floors, a heavy wood community table and the coolest of cool clear Lucite chairs), and four more people will be moving in, after which I will be renovating the entire building, including space for twenty five more people upstairs, and a drop-in inexpensive writer’s room.

The six of us who are currently here, are loving every minute. Each of us thought we liked working on our own, assumed we were saving money by not renting an office, but what we have found is that we no longer take days off at a time (when you’re paying for an office, you definitely use it!), because we are accountable to other people, and more than that, we love the people we are working with, and we love the routine of “going to work”.

In my twenties, working for a national newspaper, I used to feel that I was going to work every day with my best friends, and for the first time in years, I feel that way again.

Already, incredible collaborations have taken place. Friendships have been struck up, and business ideas exchanged. And most importantly, we have created community; a community of like-minded people who have found a third place in which we don’t have to feel lonely anymore.

I have always believed that when good people come together, magic can happen. And now I know it to be true.

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