next »

[Stephen Smith]

When it comes to Workspace Design I think that one of the most important factors is to create a workspace where you have plenty of room to get your work done. Being in a constricted space will constrict your thinking and your ability to produce. Get a large desk or table for your workspace, it is definitely an investment in your success.

In addition, if you do a lot of work on a computer you should invest in a second monitor, and a fairly large one at that. You will be amazed at how much easier it is to do your work with more real estate to do it on. This is the same principle as the large desk-space - it expands your thinking and makes it easier to keep things moving on the screen.

This is my desk in my home office. Care to share yours?

[Stephen Smith]

For those of you that do not work at home do you have any thoughts on how your workspace is laid out at work? Do you prefer an open plan or more conventional cubicle layout?

[SteveC]

Open plan offices are evil!

I work in a building with an open atrium connecting all three floors.  There's a café in the atrium, so adding to the noise is the smell of bacon cooking each morning!  I had never used headphones at work until we moved into that place!

I've never worked in a proper cube-farm but I suspect I wouldn't like that either.
The best environment for actually getting stuff done (programming in my case) has been the two small companies I've worked for, where we had small shared offices -- three of us in one case and up to five in the other.  

S

[Stephen Smith]

I once shared an office with 2 others. It got tough at times when we were all on the phone at the same time, even with the headsets.

[SteveC]

I once shared an office with 2 others. It got tough at times when we were all on the phone at the same time, even with the headsets.

I suppose I was lucky.  That rarely happened.  And in extremis there was another phone in the meeting room.  But I can see that might be a problem.

But was it worse than the six people on the desk cluster behind you in an open plan office all being on the phone at once, including one web-chat (which seems to require a higher volume!)?

S