Category Archives: Workspaces

Interesting spaces where people become productive.

Standing Up to Productivity

In Ernest’s room there was a large desk covered with stacks of letters, magazines, and newspaper clippings, a small sack of carnivores’ teeth, two unwound clocks, shoehorns, an unfilled pen in an onyx holder, a wood carved zebra, wart hog, rhino and lion in single file, and a wide-assortment of souvenirs, mementos and good luck charms. He never worked at the desk. Instead, he used a stand up work place he had fashioned out of a bookcase near his bed.His portable typewriter was snugged in there and papers were spread along the top of the bookcase on either side of it. He used a reading board for longhand writing – Extract from Papa Hemingway: A Personal Memoir, AE Hotchner

For the past couple of weeks, I had been reading and posting up a lot about the whole standing workspace movement and all its benefits (which I’ll list shortly). So I decided to stop being the preacher who doesn’t practice what he preaches- and I tried it last night.

I elevated my tiny chair onto my evenly tiny desk and laid my netbook on it coupled with my journal and some stationary. My workspace is usually tied-down in that the speakers, mouse and power cables are duck-taped onto the desk so as to decrease clutter and to make things… a bit less movable? Overall, I was still able to play some tunes out of my tiny speakers beneath the chair- this was great.

The experience kind of seemed a bit intense at the beginning because from what I had read;I was in for some excruciating foot torture. But my experience was totally contrary to this. It felt as though I was at the gym but my body wasn’t complaining too much and my mind just felt intensely engaged. I felt so ALIVE!
Before last night, I never could make it past the 2-hour sitting mark without falling off to sleep. Last night, I was up from 19h30 till 23h30!!! That’s 4-hours of standing and moving around being uber, sipping on some coffee while typing away at the venomous keys and conjuring up major creativity! It felt amazing.

This “way of working” is actually a much healthier way of getting things done as oppose to the traditional desk and chair workspace. It improves your posture, keeps you awake and it increases your heart rate which will help you burn more calories. Yes, working this way could help you lose all that extra flab.

The value of this practice has been apparent to many great men of the past:

Thomas Jefferson is one of the most famous users of the standing desk workspace. His six-legged “tall desk” had an adjustable slanted top that was big enough to place a folio. On this desk, Thomas Jefferson drew up brilliant architectural blueprints for buildings like the Virginia State Capitol.

Winston Churchill also an avid user of the standing-desk. He often laid out the gallery proofs of is next book on a standing desk studied them carefully, looking around to make corrections.

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As an entrepreneur or anyone else trying to strive towards a progressive goal amidst a cloud of doubt and old habits, the last thing you need is yet another reason to not do any work today. The chair was that, for me. I became lazy after some time spent sitting down and that allowed for my mind to space out into the unknown (NSFW blogs and funny YouTube videos) no matter how much work I had to do. This mundane element of my working regime was causing me to even create false measures of productivity, like overconsuming knowledge as opposed to putting it into practice (all those “How to…” articles).

Tonight is my second night on my feet.

I’ll give an update after I’ve completed a month working this way

So Far, Sooo Goood.

Follow us at ZooLooConcepts

Check out the article that inspired my change Art of Manliness

Office Utopia: Benefits of Working from Home

Wake up. You take that seemingly long awaited yawn and feel your whole face expand. Tiredly reaching out for your door handle, you manage to open it. You start brewing a replenishing cup of coffee. Still with your eyes half closed, you sluggishly manage to drag your feet about 6-more-feet and eventually sit on your chair. You reach for the power button and… you’re at work.

This is my Utopia. I have always wanted to work from home, since childhood. I could imagine the pleasures of walking around half naked while attending to a business call; or reading up an “important”office document while taking a dump…
These were the thoughts of my curious and insanely ambitious teenage-self. In 2012, I managed to get a job (part-time) as a project manager for a property company wishing to expand- digitally. The projects were not very difficult, this allowed me to work from home; live my dream- it was amazing. That experience became part of the reason why we plan to run ZooLoo Concepts from home like we always have… except this time we plan to make it more official. Yep, soon we’ll be calling on to Bob the Builder for some advice on… hammering nails?

A survey summarized in the Microsoft whitepaper, Work without Walls, puts to light the advantages of working from home from the employee point of view:

10) Environmentally friendly (23%)
9) More time with family (29%)
8) Less stressful environment (38%)
7) Quieter atmosphere (43%)
6) Eliminate long commute (44%)
5) Less distractions (44%)
4) More productive (45%)
3) Avoid traffic (47%)
2) Save gas (55%)
1) Work/home balance (60%)

List adopted from Forbes

The above benefits can also apply to you, as an entrepreneur. The parental factor of improvement in the above list seems to be costs. People would be spending less on time, gas and stress and spend more on family, productivity and feeling good.

Could explain how the late Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were so productive…

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in the first Apple "office"

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in the first Apple “office”

Logos

"Act Accordingly" - Colin Wright

“Act Accordingly” – Colin Wright

It’s estimated that most people see tens of thousands of marketing messages a day, and you might see even more than that, depending on where you live in the world.

That’s a lot of messages. And most of them are trying to convince you of something.

To add insult to injury, many of these messages don’t even seem like marketing. Instead, a product is mentioned in a pop song or displayed in the background on a prime time dramedy.

Perhaps the most cunning of these messages, though, is the apple on your laptop. Or the swoosh on your sneakers. Or the charging bull on your energy drink can.

I say cunning because, in most cases, consumers of the products bearing these logos are more than happy to display them. In fact, they’d feel a little ripped off if they couldn’t. The logo stands for something, whether it be quality, edginess, or a certain indefinable cool that you understand, but can’t put your finger on.

These associations aren’t accidental: There are teams of very intelligent people in charge of building up the reputation of these iconic marks. They make sure their computers are used by the right people, and their energy drinks are chugged by the most influential stars for specific demographics. It’s an aspect of branding that is part art and part science, and its most shining success has been making consumers feel that by associating themselves with a certain logo—certain colors, certain words, certain songs, certain tastes, and certain packaging—they are themselves transformed into something more. They believe that some of the quality or edginess or cool displayed in commercials and magazine spreads will somehow rub off on them.

In a way, it does. It’s said that you are what you eat, and if you decide that you’re a Whole Foods person, for example, chances are you’re eating more organic, healthy foods than someone who associates themselves with the McDonald’s brand. It’s not a given, but the likelihood is higher.

This association is very superficial. The attributes that cause a person to eat healthier are not imbued by a brand; the brand simply brings these attributes to the surface. It’s encouraging to feel there are other people like you out there, and you’re not just a log floating down a lonesome river: You’re part of a movement, something bigger than yourself. This is your grocery store. Read more on The MinimalistsAct Accordingly by Colin Wright

“Logos” is an excerpt from Colin Wright’s new book, Act Accordingly, published today by Asymmetrical Press, available in Kindle ($3) and Print ($7) editions.

Colin Wright is a minimalist, entrepreneur, and full-time traveler who travels to a new country every four months based on the votes of the readers at his blonikeg, Exile Lifestyle.

If you are near Missoula, Montana, Colin is hosting a special reading and book-signing event for Act Accordingly on 6/26.

Build Your Own 6 watts Home Server using a Raspberry Pi

We were actually considering having a whole page on the Blog dedicated to the developments of the Raspberry Pi Team and its ever expansive community.

What do you guys think?

Björn Ruberg's avatarRuberg's blog

IMG_1513 In the picture besides you see my new home server built around a raspberry pi. The parts in detail:

  • raspberry pi model b Rev.2 inside a transparent casing
  • D-Link DUB-H7 7-Port USB 2.0 Hub (confirmed working with the raspberry pi)
  • 2.5 inch 500 GB usb harddisk from toshiba (an older one I had)
  • Hauppauge Nova-T Stick for DVB-T (confirmed working with the raspberry pi IF you have a powered usb hub!)

The pi is connected to a fritzbox 7270 via ethernet and is running raspian (Debian Wheezy). The CPU is overclocked a little at 800 MHz.

Currently this small computer is running the following services for me:

  • full webserver consisting of nginx, php and mysql (follow standard tutorials for debian)
  • web rss reader using tiny rss 1.7.4
  • streaming tv from the tv stick to all computers in the network using vdr and streamdev-plugin
  • streaming requested music via the upnp…

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