Design for Life

The new normal usually encompasses a couple of days in the office for me and today was one of my days in - to catch up with the team for our weekly meeting (some online and some in person) and also to deliver a client seminar. So today probably provides as a good an illustration of how my work life has changed. The firm I work for has long been a champion of agile working although (like many of my era I suspect), my own views about working away from the office were until Covid fairly ambivalent with my preference being to work among the rest of the team. I am very much in the “working agilely” camp now mainly I guess because I am lucky enough to have sufficient space at home to hide myself away from the rest of the family but also because working productively is easier away from the myriad distractions and interruptions of office life.

I can certainly see why some people still  prefer being in the office although I am not sure anyone particularly enjoys the commute but over the last 7 months I have definitely come to see the advantages of working from home (not least the time saving from avoiding the said commute even though for me it is generally only around an hour per day). I certainly do not enjoy the demands of reading everything in softcopy (although my desk is immeasurably tidier) and I can foresee that challenges lie ahead when clients start to demand face to face meetings again. But for the time being I am quite happy to  enjoy the view of my front garden from my spare bedroom window and conduct my business via teams /zoom.