At the beginning of last week we moved in to an office that used to be a media library in West Kingsway College on Longford St, right near Warren St station.

We’ve managed to get a fantastic deal, lots of space and in a great location. It seemed an opportunity we couldn’t pass up.

So why have we done it?

  1. Our dining tables were beginning to creak under the weight
  2. It will be much quicker to visit clients being based in central London
  3. It gives us room to expand and have freelancers work with us whenever needed
  4. It makes us more ‘professional’… to a certain extent, doing what is expected of us
  5. It separates our home life from our work life
  6. We’ll have permanent whiteboards (this one is for me mainly, I love whiteboards)
  7. We now have a compulsory finish time of 6.30 (the building gets locked up)
  8. The Bree Louise is just around the corner

What we want to stay the same

It wasn’t a completely straight forward decision to move to offices as there were parts of working from each others living rooms that really appealed, and worked. We particularly liked the cooking arrangements – whoever’s house it was would provide a meal for lunch and we would sit and eat together. Of course the lack of commute was also a huge bonus. We all lived within a 25 minute walk or bus ride from each other.

To try and keep as much of the good things as possible, we’ve got some ground rules in place:

  1. Every Friday we rotate around each others homes and cook lunch for one another
  2. We still have flexible working hours and times, although our usual day will be 10 – 6
  3. Being open to different ways of working, trying things out and not necessarily just conforming to standard office practices
  4. Having a review point after 3 months to see if the office has improved the way we work, and if it is a cost worth carrying on with

We have all been really excited about moving to offices, but mindful of trying not to lose the benefits of working from home where possible.

We hope that this will be a permanent move for Outlandish Ideas, but being the flexible and open-minded partnership that we are, will be willing to change our plans if it doesn’t provide the benefits we are hoping for. We’ll keep you posted!

Abi