The Year I Stopped Working At a Desk
My best work happens anywhere other than my desk, so why not embrace that chaos?
My best work happens anywhere other than my desk, so why not embrace that chaos?
As a freelancer who has worked from home since 2017, I can honestly say I never really thought about my ‘‘home office design’’ until 2020, when my now-husband also started working from home, and our one-bedroom apartment became the center of our universe. I magnanimously let him have use of the desk I’d set up in the living room, in part to be kind and in part because I had a secret, which was that I’d never really used the desk in the first place.
Ergonomic chairs, standing desks, one of those things that raises your laptop up to eye level: not for me! My ideal workday is spent moving between the couch, the floor, and even bed (not under the covers, though—even I have to draw a line somewhere), using a mix of pillows, books, and my own body to hold up my computer, a notebook I jot ideas down in, and my phone. I’m not saying this is for everyone: my husband, for example, works more steadily throughout the day than I do, needing to reliably be at his desk most of the day.
My work routine, though, is more flexible: I might spend two hours working on a story and then 90 minutes doing idle research on various online shopping websites with countless trips to the kitchen in between, and working in different parts of my apartment helps me stay mentally organized—deep writing happens in the bedroom with the door closed, my laptop set atop the fluffiest pillow I own, with smaller, decorative pillows used as arm and footrests. When I’m doing administrative work, I like to spread out on the couch, using one arm to hold my phone and notes (this is also where my mail lives, because I like to have a healthy mix of bills, catalogues, and invitations within arm’s reach for when I want to break to do personal tasks). The coffee table in front of me holds coffee, seltzer, and Diet Coke—I simply need all these cans and mugs around me in order to feel like I’m being productive, and I don’t have room for a desk that would hold them all!
I have spent a not-insignificant amount of time researching work setups that might be objectively ‘‘better,’’ but over the last half of this year I’ve come to the conclusion: why fix what’s not broken? I’ve worked in an office before, and I genuinely think my ‘‘work from anywhere’’ setup is more conducive to the kind of tasks I do and the way I like to get things done. I do fantasize about having a dedicated home office, but only because I would want to fill it with porcelain figurines and framed pictures of my mom’s corgi.
As I do my own mental inventory of 2022, and think about my to-do list for 2023, I’m getting excited about what I’ve accomplished and what I’m energized about doing in the future. I’m looking forward to pitching more, writing more, and publishing more—and I’m really looking forward to doing it all from the couch.
Photo by Luis Alvarez/Getty Images
Work from a desk, work from the floor—your options abound:
