A freelance graphic designer earns $25,000 for an ad campaign. A teacher drives for Uber on the weekends. An electrician owns and operates a successful small business. A stay-at-home mom sells Mary Kay cosmetics on Facebook. A recent immigrant cleans houses under the table. A retired woman knits hats to sell at craft fairs. What do these workers have in common?
There is more to what is currently called the gig economy than flavour-of-the-month media stories suggest.
I feel I could both live and work quite happily there.
I love Georgian architecture and this looks amazing. I particularly like how the lawn rolls up to the front door.
The asking price is €1.45 million. More details here.
According to Neil Gaiman, in a recent tweet, “This is where I finished American Gods, where I wrote a lot of Anansi Boys, and where I got flu and completely failed to write any of the Graveyard Book. It’s the most peaceful and magical place. I hope it finds a new person who cherishes it.”
Increasingly fluid – “What we mean is that things are more open, less set, because people do have more ways to connect, see and experience more things.”
No turning point on trust – “Our new analysis shows no real differences in levels of trust among the young with regards to all sorts of traditional institutions.”
Just as caring – “But this does not mean that Gen Z are a cohort of activists.
Neither are they selfish snowflakes, too busy watching YouTube videos of people eating Tide Pods. The evidence suggests they are just as active in social causes as previous generations, sometimes in different ways (using technology), but just as often in traditional ways, such as volunteering.”
Inflection point on health – On obesity: “it’s not getting better either. A lot of this is arguably to do with the environment around young people which is shaped to make it harder to keep a healthy weight – the people they see, the shops they shop at, the food they have available, all create a social norm, and are often geared to make them fat.”
Importance of digital skills – “In some ways, Generation Z already have an
innate advantage over other generations, just through growing up fully integrated with technology – they are much more discerning of online sources than Millennial children ever were.”
Danger is different – “Generation Z are not the teenage rebels of ages past. Generational declines in youth crime, smoking, drinking and sexual activity reflect a significant behavioural shift.”
And digital is double-edged – “There is a growing body of evidence of the downsides from unfettered use of technology, prompting more strident statements from politicians and officials, including the head of the NHS in the UK. Social media use has correlations with anxiety, bullying, peer pressure, lower self-esteem, alongside much more positive outcomes.
We’re only in the infancy of understanding the full impact.”
Also, some fascinating data points (in no particular order):
In 25 EU countries, the number of young people detained by the police dropped by 42% between 2008 and 2014.
In the US in 2015, 22% of high schoolers had been in a physical fight that year compared with 36% in 1999.
66% of Generation Z think of themselves as exclusively heterosexual
compared with 71% of Millennials, 85% of Gen X and 88% of Baby Boomers.
Just 30% of teenagers feel the things they own say a lot about how well they are doing in life, compared with 42% in 2011.
Only 39% of teens prefer to buy gender-specific shoes, compared with
57% of Millennials.
40% of 12-15 year olds in 2010, felt that things they saw on social media were either entirely or mostly true; just 24% of Gen Z 12-15 year olds think that now.
Back in the century of 9 to 5, there was Home, there was the Commute and there was the Office.
In the age of the sovereign professional, the Commute often disappears. Home and Office become one.
According to the UK’s Office of National Statistics, 4.3 million people now work from home. That’s 13.6% of the total workforce (both employed and self-employed). However, the data suggests that half (50.3%) of all self-employed people work from home, either wholly or using home as a base from which to visit clients.
That’s a lot of home-offices.
But, where do you start? You’ve shrugged off the shackles and the corporate comfort blanket. You’ve broken free from the gilded cage. How do you carve a place to work from your place to live? Here are a few considerations and inspirations.
Considerations
How much space do you need? Maybe, just a quiet desk will do, but will clients visit you? Do you need a separate work-space (studio, treatment room, consulting room, recording studio, etc.)? And a waiting room,too? Some rooms may have a dual business/domestic purpose, but will your partner welcome the 50″ screen in the new dining/meeting room?
Seasons and services. Separate garden rooms and garage conversions are popular, with the advantage of still maintaining a degree of separation between work-life and life-life. But, consider if they will work in all seasons: from the dead of winter to the heat of summer. Do you have adequate power (including the need for heating) and internet access?
Legals, tax and admin. How will working from home affect the following:
Does your mortgage or tenancy agreement allow working from your home?
What about property tax? If you work alone from a home-office, this may be allowable under domestic “poll tax”, but if you have a studio or treatment room etc, you might yourself liable for business rates. Check before you begin.
Insurances. How does your business affect your building and contents insurances? Do you need public liability insurance? What about a risk-assessment of your home if you will have clients visiting?
Peace and privacy. Can you work uninterrupted? Even during the school holidays? Kids, dogs and washing machines all lose their charm when they are a regular soundtrack to your conference calls. And, even the best prepared television interviews can be derailed, as Professor Robert Kelly discovered in this BBC News interview:
Inspirations
The home office is hardly new. Every working farmhouse is a head office. Therapists and tutors have always worked from home to some degree. All have adapted to the business needs of their owners.
Try these famous locations for inspiration:
Venice
Take a punt, or a putt-putt down the Grand Canal. Those elegant palazzos were built, business-first, by the wealthy merchants of the city-state as home and office.
On the water-level was the impressive canal-side entrance and a ground floor of storerooms and offices for transacting daily business. The next floor up (first floor for Brits, second for Americans) was the piano nobile or grand floor, lavishly decorated and used for entertaining. The floor above was the family’s private apartments.
Soane moved to 12 Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1792 and, as his collection grew, he acquired numbers 13 and 14 , remodelling the houses and stables to accommodate an innovative, hinged Picture Gallery (that houses Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress) and more space for the collection. He negotiated an act of parliament for the house to be preserved as it was when he died.
If you’re in London it’s worth a visit – for research purposes, obviously. It is a glorious clutter, muddle and inspiration.
In the basement is the sarcophagus of Seti I, of which Wikipedia says:
By contrast, the apartments where Freud lived and worked from 1891 to 1938 are more modest. Freud moved there with his family when it was a new-build. As his practice grew, he took on the second apartment on the floor as his practice. Today, the living space is a museum and exhibition, with little furniture, but his consulting room and waiting room are furnished much as they would have been in his time. The famous couch, however, is in London.
Image: Vienna Convention Bureau
The apartment next door, perfect for separating work and domestic life.
Chartwell
Winston Churchill purchased his beloved Chartwell in 1922 and lived there until shortly before his death in 1965. As Wikipedia has it:
In the 1930s, when Churchill was excluded from political office, Chartwell became the centre of his world. At his dining table, he gathered those who could assist his campaign against German re-armament and the British government’s response of appeasement; in his study, he composed speeches and wrote books; in his garden, he built walls, constructed lakes and painted.
When the Churchill’s purchased the property, they had it remodelled adding a three-storey wing with views over the Kent Weald. The property sits on a steep slope, so the entrance level, ground floor room of the extension is the middle floor and a large drawing room. Downstairs is the dining room, while upstairs, is Churchill’s large study. There is also a small library in the original house and, of course, books everywhere else.
Image: National TrustImage: Andrew Munro
Chartwell is a beautiful retreat that still feels like a home. It’s not enormous like stately homes of previous centuries, but it has space to live … and to work.
Dickens London Home
Forty-eight Doughty Street was Charles Dickens’ Bloomsbury home for just 2 1/2 years, but it is beautifully preserved as a Victorian Home. It’s where he wrote Oliver Twist, Pickwick Papers and Nicholas Nickleby.
If you’re a writer, you need only a quiet, well-lit study.
Image: Andrew Munro
And, possibly space to entertain.
From the merchant palazzos of a city-state to the modest study of a great writer, these homes were all designed to provide a place to work and a place to live.
An empty pageant; a stage play; flocks of sheep, herds of cattle; a tussle of spearmen; a bone flung among a pack of curs; a crumb tossed into a pond of fish; ants, loaded and labouring; mice, scared and scampering; puppets, jerking on their strings – that is life. In the midst of it all you must take your stand, good-temperedly and without disdain, yet always aware that a man’s worth is no greater than the worth of his ambition.
