My desk at HBR is a chaotic place: covered with books, stacks of folders, gifts from colleagues (mostly involving cats), and dozens of pens that no longer contain ink. I also quite like it. My boss and a colleague sit on either side of me, their desks a bit more pristine. Zooming out, the rest of our digital team sits in an open space, while our print colleagues tend to work in cubicles. It’s not perfect: It’s often freezing cold, and it’s hard to find quiet places to edit. But we have working internet, coffee, and a printer. Big windows look out over a highway. And as I commute from work to home or the gym each day, I do a mental transition exercise in which I crumple up parts of the day and “throw” them out until tomorrow (it’s weird, but it works).
Do We Really Need the Office?
What the WFH boom means for the future.
July 15, 2020
· Long read