One of my biggest hurdles so far freelancing has been finding a work environment that’s inspiring. Aesthetically, I’m still not where I’d like to be with my home office — it’s dull, frequently messy, and cluttered with unused electronics to the point of looking a bit like a pawnshop. Still, no matter how cool I can make my office, it still lacks the company of others.

Staying sane

Being an independent freelancer is a very solitary occupation, one that requires vigilance and determination to avoid losing your creative edge and  sanity. While there are tons of upsides to working independently, being physically isolated from others day in and day out is enough to dull your spirt and work ethic to near non-existence. I find that I physically need a bit of interaction IRL to keep from going all Jack Nicholson (in The Shining) crazy.

Coffee, beards, and Macbooks

Enter coffee shops. Seattle teems with them. Hell, there are three coffee roasters withing walking distance of my house. It’s insane.

I’ve gone to coffee shops and cafes with the pretense of working before, but usually it feels like I’m not really getting much work done — Like I’m “working” but not Actually Working™. For me, the trick is the type of work you set out to do. Running a small business, I’ve always got a healthy helping of project management, emailing, billing, accounting, banking, blogging, etc — rote tasks that are easy and straightforward on a laptop. I go out with a big ‘ole to-do list and I don’t leave until it’s all done.

Clean slate

The best part about doing all the procedural work out of the office is that when you return, all you have left is the “real work” — design and development. I find that I’m vastly more productive designing when I know that all the business details have been taken care of. All it takes is a few hours, a cup of coffee and I return to my office with the luxury of no distractions.

The bestest place?

I think the best remote work strategy is to keep things fresh and rotate through a number of different places, so I’m going to write up a few mini-reviews of local coffee shops around Seattle. Hopefully these will be useful to some other freelancers looking to mix up their work environment.