Today I had a day of experimental working. Since All About People finished, I’ve been thinking a lot about workspace and place, largely thanks to Oliver Baxter’s point on where we’re most creative, but also out of my pure fascination with the search for more productive, human and creative ways to work.

I really feel that the idea of the workplace will be re-defined over the next decade and I’m fascinated with emerging themes such as the ‘Hollywood model’ and the rise of co-working. With technology and connectivity now maturing, already I don’t need to be in a specific place to interact with a specific team. Recently I’ve been spending some time in a co-working space and that’s made me feel more open, almost liberated — I’ve met some nice people and it’s driven me towards some new ideas.

But today I wanted to work alone, to tick off the to-do list, understand where I’m going to take All About People and reflect on how I’m going to launch My Amazing Team. It was a nice day and it just so happened that I had to drop the car in for a service in a small rural town nearby.

So I challenged myself to work there. No office allowed.

First thing, I needed coffee. After a 15 minute walk from the garage to the town centre — getting my heart pumping, waking me up and making some calls on the way, by 9:30am I was drinking amazing coffee and a healthy smoothie in relaxing and inspiring surrounds. By the time I’d logged on to the WiFi, I’d arranged appointments for next week and I very quickly caught up with all the emails that had been stacking up for days.

More than the productivity, I was able to take time to look around, interact in a small way with the servers, overhear snippets of conversation from other customers and enjoy the space to communicate with my work on my terms. I stayed for around an hour and a half.

Feeling fresh, I walked through the high street and out the other side, where after taking a few random side streets, wandering through a church garden and following a footpath, I came across a piece of grass, with table benches overlooking the most amazing view. I’ve used the photo I took at my bench to head this post.

I then spent another few hours in the sunshine, thinking, writing, looking and planning. Although the lack of WiFi was a drawback for certain non-urgent tasks (like uploading the videos I’d been editing to YouTube as I completed them — I did this later) I could still email, access the web, make and take calls on my phone. All while enjoying the silence in the outdoors.

You get the idea.

I’m writing this in my car just before I go to pick the kids up from school, enjoying an ice cream, having just caught up with the office on the phone and heard what a productive day everyone’s had in their own way. Yes I had the weather on my side today, but that’s the point — the potential is already there and flexible enough to allow us to be responsive to the opportunities and obstacles presented by any given day:

The office survived without me being physically there — I was as available as required of me.

The weather was amazing and I was able to enjoy it.

I was as productive as usual, if not more so.

I interacted with different people, got some thinking space, gained some perspective and experienced working in a different setting.

I was as connected (and unconnected) as I needed to be.

Now I’m not suggesting that I should do the al fresco work thing every day and I certainly recognise that many don’t have the flexibility or opportunity to do this. For me though, it was an exercise in understanding my work, where, when and how I’m productive and contribute in some small way to the workplace evolution thoughts that I’m having daily.

From that perspective, I’ll class it as a roaring success… same time tomorrow?