Recently a holiday cottage company in the English Lake District decided to take their work out of the office, and up a mountain:
We decided to take our business to new heights this week by moving to the top of Blencathra to encourage Brits to get outside this summer.
Our team were fed up with looking at the lovely weather from inside our Keswick building, so we packed up and re-located our office equipment up the 2,850ft-high mountain. Desks, phones, lamps and computers were set up and staff settled in for business as usual.
This got me thinking about the times when we should really get out of the office to do work. When I say office here, I’m meaning the place where you do most of your work, that place that sees most of your time, particularity if most of your time is spent sedentary looking at a screen.
There are huge benefits to being in a different place; there is even more benefit if that different place requires some physical exercise.
A colleague and I occasionally go on walking meetings. These aren’t just wandering around meetings, we go on a walk around a reservoir or up a hill. The flow of blood that the walking creates really helps the mental stimulation and being outside changes the nature of the conversation.
We all recognise the saying:
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
Henry Ford
If you want something different then do something different. If you’re not being productive where you are, you should go somewhere different. Perhaps you should take you’re office up a mountain?
Graham Chastney 