So, you’ve heard about all the fun your friends and colleagues are having working from a coworking space, and now you’re considering joining them. You’ve seen their results, increased productivity, happier about their career path, healthier, the list goes on, yet you’re still on the fence. Maybe you think you can’t afford it?
What is clear, is that you can’t afford to keep working the same way you are now.
So, when do you give coworking a try? At what point do you try out a day pass or sign a month lease and begin your coworking adventure?
Here are 3 tell-tale signs it might be time for a change.
You Realize You’re Going Broke
Imagine you’ve been working from the cool, hip, creative coffee shop in town for a few months now. At first you loved the vibe, the coffee, the in-house sandwich shop, and the craft beer on tap. But one day, you decide to see how much you’ve been spending working from your beloved cool, hip, creative coffee shop. To your amazement (and sudden disgust) you realize you’ve been spending $20 per day (to be ultra conservative) on a red-eye in the morning, a ruben sandwich for lunch, and a craft beer (or three) at the end of the day.
The moment you take $20 and multiply it by 20 (5 days a week x 4 weeks), it might be time to join a coworking space.
It might come as a surprise but coworking spaces are more affordable than you think, take a look at a recent blog of ours that goes over what you can expect to pay, and what you can expect to get in return.
You Realize You’re Stressed and Lonely
Let’s switch up the analogy. Imagine you’ve been working from home (after realizing how much money you’ve been spending while working from the cool, hip, creative coffee shop). However, after a month of isolation, you begin to get stir crazy and noticeably more stressed.
Instead of focusing on work, you spend more time focusing on the dishes in the sink, and the clothes littering your bedroom floor. With so much work to be done around the house, (not to mention other distractions) you start to feel guilty and irritable working from home. It’s at this moment that you begin wondering if working from home is actually “working” for you. At that point, it might be time to join a coworking space.
Shared office spaces offer the best of both worlds, that studies have proven to help you not only physically but emotionally as well. Being apart of a community of other like-minded entrepreneurs has a huge impact on many facets of your work and life.
Check out this infographic and see just how beneficial a collaborative office space can be for you.
You Realize Work Isn’t Fun
Now let’s imagine you’ve been working from your cubical in a traditional office environment. While your focus in much better, your colleagues in your department begin getting on your nerves. In order to maintain a good “working relationship” with them, you keep conversation to a minimum and they do too. Your office is plain (sterile even).
One day, while staring at the framed motivational poster on your wall (the one with an eagle soaring and the word “Success” at the top and “Expect Nothing Less” at the bottom), you suddenly realize that you aren’t the success you thought you’d be and all you expect nowadays is less—less joy, less freedom, and less to look forward to. You wonder if your boss will let you work from home a few days a week or from your cool, hip, creative coffee shop.
However, you’ve been there and done that and feel trapped in a glass cage of empty emotion (thanks Ron Burgundy).
Again, this goes back to the aspect of community as well as environment. Coworking is all about bringing different people together who all share a common goal, building their businesses while sharing and gaining knowledge from other like-minded companies and individuals. The environment is optimized to make this type of culture a reality, providing the amenities of a corporate office i.e. fast secure Wi-Fi, printers, phones, even mail boxes as well as the amenities of the cool, hip coffee shop by providing things like craft coffee and beer, snacks and a fridge to bring your own favs.
Get out of the cubicle, stop wasting money at the pretentious coffee-house, and actually get some real work done by leaving the house for a change. Coworking is a real solution and one that you won’t regret.
At The Launch Factory we provide a unique, technology-optimized, Charlotte coworking space that’s ready for business professionals and teams of all shapes and sizes. If you have any questions about our space or would like to schedule a private tour, please contact us here.
