Who knew the secret to getting more work done wasn't buying another planner, downloading yet another productivity app, or convincing myself that this would finally be the week I transformed into one of those annoyingly productive "morning people"?
Apparently, all I needed was another human being.
Yesterday afternoon, I headed over to my friend Ray's house for our first co-working session. He and his husband graciously let me invade their dining room, where Ray worked at one end of the table while I claimed the other. His husband was upstairs in his home office doing his own thing.
We spent a few minutes catching up, cussing and discussing everything except work. Then we opened our laptops and got down to business.
For the next couple of hours, we mostly sat in comfortable silence, breaking it only to ask a question or crack a smart-ass comment. Somehow, I accomplished more in those two hours than I had in the previous two days.
The idea was born over brunch last week. Since we're both independent creative types, we're also both pro-level procrastinators. Left to our own devices, we'll sit down to write, reorganize our desks, answer a couple of emails, and somehow end up reading about the inventor of the paper clip.
So I suggested we become “accountability buddies.”
Ray, being the delightfully goofball that he is, asked, "Won’t that hurt something?"
After kicking around a few ideas, we landed on something simple: co-working together a couple of afternoons each week. No meetings. No brainstorming sessions. No inspirational TED Talks. Just two friends sitting at opposite ends of a table, quietly working on our own projects.
Turns out, that's exactly what our easily distracted brains needed.
It's surprisingly hard to disappear down a YouTube rabbit hole when someone across the table is actually getting stuff done. Productivity, it seems, is mildly contagious.
Co-working is also social without being socially exhausting.
After spending so much time working alone over the past few years, I forgot how nice it is just having another person nearby. We don't have to entertain each other. We simply exist in the same space, get our work done, and occasionally interrupt each other with something completely unimportant.
An unexpected bonus? It kept me away from the endless rabbit hole otherwise known as "the news." Left to my own devices, I would've spent half the afternoon following the latest clusterfuck in Iran and the daily shitshow in Washington, D.C.
Our illustrious Chump-in-Chief always seems to have another headline in mind, but I decided my attention was better spent finishing my own work than feeding the outrage machine.
And unlike renting office space or buying an eight-dollar latte just to justify occupying a table at a coffee shop all afternoon, our DIY co-working arrangement costs next to nothing. Just a little gas to get me to his place. Or him to mine.
Honestly, I think we may have accidentally stumbled onto a real, reproducible life hack.
Keep calm and carry on!
Clint 🌈✌️
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FROM THE ARCHIVES
BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY
07-09 = Anthony D. Romero (1965- ) = American lawyer and ACLU director 🌈
07-09 = David Hockney (1937-2026) = English painter and photographer 🌈
07-09 = Dorothy Thompson (1893-1861) = American journalist 🌈
07-09 = Henry Geldzahler (1935-1994) = Belgian-American curator 🌈
07-09 = Kelly McGillis (1957- ) = American actor 🌈
07-09 = Marc Almond (1957- ) = English singer-songwriter 🌈
07-09 = Mathilde Krim (1926-2018) = Swiss medical researcher 🌈
07-09 = Minor White (1908-1976) = American photographer 🌈
07-09 = Oliver Sacks (1933-2015) = English-American neurologist and author 🌈
07-09 = Vanessa Selbst (1984- ) = American poker player 🌈
MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY
“As you get older, it gets a bit harder to keep the spontaneity in you, but I work at it.”
David Hockney“You must plan to be spontaneous.”
David Hockney
Co-Working ... interesting. Would never work with me but I am glad it has been good for you. Will be interesting to hear future progress reports. Question: remind me are all of your "Born This Way On This Day" people listed part of the LGBTQIA+ Community? Also, I believe I realize that not all your "Man Crush of the Day" are not gay. And how about "Woman Crush of the Day?" Fondly, Michael
For the most part, I work alone, but on the job, I often mentored women from our administrative staff. I don’t know what the salary was for them, but we have had people who worked, but were still eligible for food stamps. One partnership went on for 8 years, and she went on to advance above me, and she was a real prize.
We had been best friends, or I thought. The last time I saw her, she made anti gay comments to her husband when she thought I couldn’t hear.
It hurt a lot.