Why ‘home co-working’ is taking off

By Uri BramFeatures correspondent

Though coffee shops and libraries can be great places to gather, some people are working alongside friends in their personal spaces instead.

When Lotte Elsa Goos, a children’s writer, finds herself feeling uninspired, she’s developed a fruitful solution: inviting over friends for ‘home co-working’ sessions in her Brooklyn living room. “I realised it increases both my joy level and my productivity level,” she says. “It’s a natural upgrade from working at home alone.”

Goos began the practice while living in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2019. Visiting friends who stayed overnight at her apartment would work together in her living space the following day. After lockdowns, she began inviting friends over specifically for co-working sessions. Her main collaborators are fellow writers and other friends “whose energy I love”, such as a psychologist who runs an NGO. She establishes the co-working sessions ad-hoc, inviting people over when either she or they are feeling stuck in their projects, or as a way to simply see a friend.

As remote work has grown throughout the past several years, data has shown benefits in working outside of a traditional office set-up. Its biggest advantages, according to a 2021 Gallup survey of 9,000 full-time US workers, include flexibility to intersperse personal and work commitments (cited by 37% of respondents), improved wellbeing (44%) and avoiding a commute (52%).

However, some workers have also reported isolation as a major drawback of traditional remote work. As a result, some remote workers have gravitated towards working alongside others. Often, people gather at cafés, libraries or co-working spaces. But those locations lack many key advantages, says Netherlands-based Eowyn Dean, who instead sets up co-working sessions at her home.

Nile Davies

Goos establishes the co-working sessions in her home ad-hoc (Credit: Nile Davies)

Seeing how her friends structure their workdays, maintain motivation and move among tasks “makes [for] a better source of inspiration”, she says. “The more different types of things you see people do in context, the more you think ‘oh, I could integrate that into what I’m doing, in a completely unexplored way’.” She also notes cost-savings as an additional advantage, like not having to spend on food in outside establishments.

Dean, a project manager and UX designer, began home co-working in 2014 while living in South Carolina, US, alternating among her own home and those of two friends: a business-intelligence specialist, and a programmer at a start-up. Other co-working partners have included a nursing home inspector and a yoga teacher. Dean says she sets up sessions by texting her friends: “I’m feeling like being antisocially social, would you like to come over and mostly ignore each other except when something neat comes up?”

Dean appreciates the opportunities to intersect with her friends’ work. Among other benefits, she enjoys taking breaks from coding to try out a yoga routine, or give feedback on a business model. In Rotterdam, one co-working session with an artist led to helping out with a voiceover, which has led to a new professional interest in voice acting. “Doing projects together, whether or not it’s the same project, enables a lot of cross-pollination. It increases your surface area for serendipity.”

Eowyn Dean

Dean appreciates the opportunities to intersect with her friends’ work (Credit: Eowyn Dean)

Meanwhile, Goos finds working around friends increases her output. She uses a productivity method known as the Pomodoro Technique, where collaborators share focused 25-minute work sessions prefaced by telling each other what they plan to accomplish in the upcoming interval. “There’s something about saying your commitments out loud to another person that makes you actually stick with them,” she says.

Overall, home co-workers report the practice can provide some of the best elements of both home and office. Dean appreciates the ability to move among work, rest and socialising: “I’ve always given people working with me the option to take a call or break in my room,” she says, and likes that “you can go take a nap when you’re tired, and then come back.”

But to her, the most important benefit is the opportunity to see another important side of her friends’ lives. “If you only invite friends into the home for strictly social events [it would] feel almost like you didn’t know them,” she says. Home co-working allows her and her friends to “collaborate fluidly” on “the things we care about building in life”.