Poll: Where do you work (physically)? | Hacker News Reader

Poll: Where do you work (physically)?

113 pointscperciva122 comments

Inspired by confusion about this poll question: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2145250

Where do you physically do most of your work?

I just finished four months of do-it-yourself carpentry in order to turn a sitting room at my home into a home office:

Before: http://family.efinke.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/House-Vi...

After: http://family.efinke.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/IMG_5086...

Some more "after" pictures, which might be of interest to anyone else that enjoys woodworking as an "away-from-computer" hobby:

Drawers: http://family.efinke.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/IMG_5089...

http://family.efinke.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/IMG_5098...

http://family.efinke.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/IMG_5078...

Custom sliding shelves: http://family.efinke.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/IMG_5080...

That is some solid carpentry! Awesome bookshelves.

Kudos to you mister, the rest of us mere mortals can but bow before your presence.

Thanks! The shelving turned out better than even I expected, mostly due to my wife's design and direction.

That is very nice work! How long have you been doing carpentry? How long did it take to learn?

Thanks! This was my first serious carpentry project apart from just fixing things around the house, but I've been watching shows like The New Yankee Workshop and This Old House for years, as well as reading every Wood/Handyman/American Woodworker magazine I can get a subscription to.

I think I learned more though throughout the course of this project than I have in the past 10 years of just reading about how to do it. A typical day would end with my wife asking "How is it going out there?" (in the garage), and I would answer, "Well, I'm learning a lot about how not to do things."

Nice work. I've always liked built-in storage and workspaces. It just seems like a cleaner more organized look than stand alone furniture. And all the better that you could design it to your exact specifications.

Excellent job. I'll be right over with my laptop. :)

Great work, sir. You inspired me to try that for my own office :)

Believe it or not I do much of my work walking along the street. When I'm doing office hours at YC (and the weather's good and we don't need to look at screens) I usually suggest going for a walk.

I suppose the MacBook Air is light enough that one could do "look at screen" work like this.

Watch out for traffic though.

And assuming you're good at typing one-handed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripatetic_school

I'm assuming this is "meet with/talk to hopefuls" kind of work?

Very smart strategy, considering this:

Just today I've heard a theory, that when you walk around brain is more able to try new ways of thinking and solving problems, because the 'motion center' in the brain is doing what it's supposed to do: handling one's movements. On the contrary when we are not moving, this center can often overwhelm the thought process with already established habits, which makes trying new things harder.

I thing it works - even in offices many people start walking in circles when they have an important decision to make.

Funny, in my language the word meaning 'reflexively', 'instinctively' is in a form which can be literally translated 'out of the movement', which quite fits this theory.

I didn't look for the scientific background, but I know from the context of how I've heard this, that it was taught at the univ on a psychology specialization.

Interesting. Sometimes we speak metaphorically of life's inertia. If the part of the brain that controls our actual movement also controls our habits of thought, I guess we are not far off!

Nietzsche said that all great thoughts are conceived while walking... perhaps this is why.

re: Nietzsche...

An early Western practitioner of "walking meditation" perhaps?

We yogis from Berkeley prefer lotus posture with gaze turned toward spiritual eye ;)

Good to have you aboard, Nick. Hope you enjoy an addiction to HN as much as I do.

It's probably already a known phenomenon to lots of people, and that theory you mentioned is just some guy's hypothesis as to why it is so.

That's funny: usually when I'm about to make a phone call I almost automatically get out of my chair/sofa and start walking around. For some reason having a phone conversation works better for me when walking around. Perhaps it's due to the same theory.

Aristotle's Peripatetic school was all about walking while thinking and teaching and learning.

Thank you for giving Aristotle some credit! Even though modern science has been able to correct some of his ideas, he was an amazing intellect and still has much to teach us.

You need to get your ass back in that office and code.

Edit: Just realized I replied to pg. Well, get your ass back into that office and implement some of those great ideas then.

When I was working on my thesis I did much of the same thing -- the majority of my "thinking" time was spent walking in a loop around the college gardens, and I would only go inside to type out a few paragraphs once I had composed them mentally.

I got quite annoyed when the college closed the gardens between midnight and 4 AM...

Maybe a CS student walking alone outside at 2am is not the best of ideas.

Don't know where you live but I never had a problem or saw anyone else have a problem late at night over my 4 years of uni.

When a student I would regularly be out and about between midnight and dawn - it's when I did my best work. I never had any concerns. Still don't. It's a pity that you live somewhere that makes it an issue.

I wasn't a CS student, though.

Aside from the danger of tripping over my feet, it was quite safe. Oxford dates from a period when the "town" would routinely riot against the "gown", and college are, quite literally, fortified.

The Wadham college gardens aren't quite so well guarded as the college proper, but they're still surrounded by a 15' stone wall -- hardly something anyone is going to climb over just on the chance that they can mug someone.

Interesting - what college?

As haliax Googled, I was at Wadham.

I should've looked it up, but I'm on my mobile and 'net access is inconvenient - sorry. Thanks for the amswer. Your comment sounded familiar - I was at Corpus, Cambridge - so the experience is similar.

I did much the same, also, Google says you were at Wadham College, right next door to me!

Where were you? Trinity? New? Rhodes house?

I was at New

An old professor of mine used to go on huge country walks for a lot of the day. He is one of the top figures in his field of AI and attributes most of his success to being able to just walk out of the campus and into a huge field. He is at a large post-polytechnic and is courted by the likes of Oxbridge and UCL/ICL almost yearly, but stays because he likes the nearby field.

Whenever I'm reading a book to learn something I tend to walk randomly around the house while reading... For some reason, it feels like it helps me to concentrate on the content and I remember it better that way...

I am a runner. I run 60 minutes to 120 minutes / day. I understand this. But at some point, you do have to click buttons in some divine ordered pattern, right? Or are you saying you don't even do this?

Dictation is a nice alternative.

Yeah, for some people, but that isn't going to work for code :)

Speaking and running isnt always easy.

After 4 steady years of working out of coffee shops, I'm currently opening a coworking space in Evanston, IL.

http://coworkingevanston.com/

http://desktimeapp.com/spaces/92-coworking-evanston

We "officially" open on Monday, but we are already functionally open and a group of us have been working out of the space for about a month. The picture above only shows one small section. It has open shared spaces, a small lounge, a collection of private offices and meeting space. If you are a north Chicagoan, stop by!

Coffee shops are great, I really love working out of them and we have some awesome ones in the area, but I needed a change. IMO, coworking spaces can do a good job of having the positive atmosphere of a coffee shop while also being conducive to actually getting work done and they make it easier to connect with people working on similar things. It's also a great way to crowdsource an awesome office for people who otherwise would be working in more isolated environments.

I split my time between a local coffee shop and at home. I simply can't sit at the house all day so on days that I don't go to the gym around lunch I instead hit the coffee shop.

There's a small group of older guys who work from the coffee shop and it's nice to have a little chit chat with them during the day. Found out today one of the guys is retired and worked at Bell Labs back in the hey day. Turns out he knows Kernighan and Ritchie and was around when those guys were hacking away to make C and working on Unix. Amazing the people that one can randomly meet.

I have a complete, insulated, properly built outdoor office at the end of my garden. It was built because I had to give up my indoor office due to my daughter being born.

End result? I now work in a tiny corner of the living room because I like being in the house and not walking up and down the garden in the cold. Oops.

Same here, good to know I'm not the only one who feels attracted to the house! Is it the lack of a kitchen that keeps you from working out there (assuming that you don't have one) or the lack of company? To me it is a bit of both.

No, just the cold and laziness. Being alone is the massive plus for me. Can't get any work done with interruptions.

I've got a converted shed in the back yard with a big old heater, but during the winter months I keep coming back to the idea of putting my heater on a cron job...

Also when it's really cold it makes me want to run when I need to go back to the house; the dash is a nice brisk way to get the blood pumping a bit.

Like I mentioned in my other post, I like to alternate my locations every couple months because otherwise I lose my creativity.

Currently, working from a hipster coffee shop. Makes for interesting scenery.

Previously, I worked at a tea cafe whose website I built, so I got all my drinks for free.

And before that I worked at a local coworking facility.

I like your idea of moving around every so often, keeps things fresh. I'm going to try this out more.

Depends on the season: http://www.flickr.com/photos/technomancy/tags/remoteoffice/ Working outdoors in the summer is the best, but Seattle coffee shops are a nice fallback for the cold months.

What do you do / what do you use to be able to see your screen clearly while outdoors in the sun?

If you look at the pictures, it seems he is in shaded area. Thus, no sun to worry about.

How do you see your screen outdoors? I get tired trying to ignore my reflection.

What laptop do you use? Are you enthusiastic about its outdoor use?

I sit outdoors alot in the summer. I use an umbrella, and a bit of proper angling and screen-tilt. Nothing special- now that I have a netbook I usually grab it and go outside (using HG makes keeping synced a breeze).

The laptop in the pictures is a Thinkpad X200s. The screen is matte which is a good start.

In my experience for basic stuff like writing words or code, a matte screen in the shadow is fine outdoors.

That's right; it's a Thinkpad X200s. Avoiding a reflective screen should go without saying, but it's surprising how many people don't understand this. The X200s is definitely the best I've ever used for mobile purposes: 1.2kg, high-res matte display, battery is easily swappable. It's got a low-voltage chipset, so with an SSD you can get six hours or so from a 9-cell battery, though usually I won't spend more than half the day outside since the seating is usually not as comfy.

I do use it in the sun occasionally for short periods, but a) I live in Seattle, and b) it actually gets uncomfortably hot if left in the sun for too long since it's black.

> Avoiding a reflective screen should go without saying, but it's surprising how many people don't understand this.

Yes, it surprised me the first time I brought my shiny new Compaq outdoors. :)

For people who work in a coffee shop:

a) Does the noise bother you?

b) Do you ever get sick of being in the same place everyday?

c) Does the owner ever get sick of you being there everyday?

Adding on to that, do you stay at the same shop all day or do you spend the first half at one place, eat lunch, then go to another?

I do my 2-5 days a week (depending on if I go to the real office) at about 50% coffee shop, then lunch and home. I try to average a coffee or refill per hour there so that I'm not pissing the owners off, but if I'm there really early, I might cut that back. When the traffic starts filling up the shop, though, I make sure I'm a paying customer.

When I was still an aspiring writer (might return to that one day, right now I'm an aspiring startup dude) I used to do all my writing in coffee shops.

I find that the only way I can do anything creative is with a lot of noise around me, the randomer the better. Helps me focus and get into the flow for some reason.

Honestly, if there isn't enough noise I will often play three different pieces of music at once to create it.

As for b) and c) I never stayed at one place for more than a few hours.

a) Sometimes the music is really bad/and or loud. People noise doesn't bother me.

b) Yes. This is why I am constantly checking out new places. Luckily I live in a place with lots of options.

c) Generally don't notice due to b). And I work from home too, so I'm not there 9-5.

a) Only when it's super loud. I have headphones and like some background noise.

b) I work at home 2-3 days/week and the coffee shop the other days. Sometimes I'll hit a different coffee shop, but not usually.

c) It's a local shop and the owner has no problem with me or the other regulars that come in. I always buy a coffee and depending on the time a breakfast or lunch burrito (also home made by another local business - super tasty). I also helped her fix a computer problem the other day. There is something a lot different about going to a locally owned shop versus something like a sbux.

a.) a pair of foam earplugs does wonders for noise cancellation. much cheaper than $200 noise-canceling headphones, and works just as well (assuming you don't want to listen to music)

Trying not to judge, but don't you feel like a dork and/or a jerk sitting in a coffee shop with a laptop and earplugs?

startup idea, earplugs that look like earbuds.

diy with an old set of broken earbuds easy enough.

I actually pair program over voip at coffee shops, so in my case the noise issue is more about making sure I'm not sitting right next to the bean grinder.

I don't think I could handle the same place all the time, but in Seattle there are lots of options; if you don't mind driving ~20 minutes you could practically go to a different coffee shop every day for a month.

a) Not particularly. I notice this affects people differently, however. I love working next to live music and if I don't' I can ignore it with headphones. My father, on the other hand, can't handle the distraction and is driven nuts by that sort of shit.

b) I try to change it up. It's easy to do in the localities I frequent. I'm sure it's harder for other people. I feel like I could do it anywhere I could get a 3g connection.

c) I like to frequent places that are very student and musician friendly, and am lucky to live in places with local businesses which embrace that sort of thing. In general these people are pretty tolerant of heavy laptop/internet usage.

Living in a big student town can cause problems for seating in coffee shops. Finals week or mid-quarter midterm dates are times when it's particularly impossible to find a place to get some work done. This has led to some contention with patrons who want space to just read the paper or talk with a friend. One coffee shop I attend has chosen to designate special space for the more casual patron to ensure they have a spot (see: http://daviswiki.org/Mishkas_Cafe).

   > Inspired by confusion about this poll question...

Great, now we'll need another poll: "Where do you work (geographically)?" :)

My kitchen table. I bought a desk some months back but cannot fit a phone, laptop, and spare monitor on it at the same time, and I like having all three for doing work on Appointment Reminder.

Sometime this year I will probably rent a proper office at the local incubator.

The Rose main reading room of the NYPL Schwarzman building (that's the one with the lions) is quiet, has wifi and outlets, and is inspirational.

http://www.nypl.org/locations/schwarzman/general-research-di...

Thanks for the tip! I'll have to try that one next time I'm in NYC (visiting relatives on a work/vacation). I've found the other NYPL building to be pretty fun places to work.

As an NYPL staffer and Hacker News junkie, I can't tell you how much I appreciate seeing this listed here.

Before I joined the library, I'd come here all the time just to get work done. Now I come here to work.

Anyway, if you go a few blocks south to the Science, Industry, and Business Library (34th & Madison Ave) there's access to tons of market research databases that have helped fill out many of my friends pitch decks.

A home office. A large room over the garage, that looks into the bowl of Diamond Head from 1100' up on the hill.

Expansive ocean views... kinda distracting.

I would love to see some pictures of what you're describing.

As a frequent visitor to the islands (my dad lives there), how do you keep from going completely stir-crazy? I've thought about moving out there and then flying to SF occasionally for networking and stuff but I just think I would go nuts.

I do most of my consulting work at a client's office.

They also sublet to a number of small startups, so it's effectively a coworking space as well.

I also tend to work from home once or twice a week, especially when the weather's bad - and I tend to work on my own projects at home.

I haven't worked in a coffee shop in about a year, but I still have meetings at coffee shops fairly regularly.

So... most of the above, I guess.

I've been working from home for 8 years now. Plenty of time to go through a few cycles of low productivity -> high productivity and back. And plenty of time to try to find the right style of workspace. I've tried working outside in the park and could never stay focused for very long. I feel like a dog sometimes, give me some fresh air and a view, and I want to run around and play. I cannot sit still when I am outdoors. Coffee shops are too noisy. And too many people to look at. I finally fixed up my basement and made a comfortable workspace. Set up a stereo system. Put some effort into the lighting. No windows, no street noise, just a fat monitor on my desk. Feels sort of like a cave but I like it.

Home office desk overlooking Stockton Street, Alcatraz, and Coit Tower (night view) http://www.flickr.com/photos/dustyrecords/5391404983/

On a stage, with an orchestra. (I'm a professional singer.)

That would be even more awesome if you were programming.

I'm often on stage, with a singer, in an orchestra. (I'm an amateur violinist.)

For a summer I sang on the subway with a friend for my living :)

I live alone, but went with a 2 bedroom apartment just so I could have an office separate from where I sleep and "relax" (although I never got around to purchasing a TV so that didn't work out) because I always figure if I get stressed/annoyed I can "escape" and do something else, although I guess the cheap option is to go outside or something. So uh, home office.

I work from home and hate it. I know that working from the comfort of your home is supposed to be the holy grail of workspaces but the thing I miss the most about working in an office is working in an office and being able to come home and have a space where my mind can unwind from my responsibilities and actually do the sort of relaxing that gives me good ideas

I typically do a local coffee shop in the morning then finish up at the home office. The morning walk is refreshing and once I get in a groove at the coffee shop it's easy to finish strong at home. Sometimes it can be too hard to get rolling while at home in the morning -- too comfy I suppose.

That is exactly my motivation for going to the coffee shop. I find I can focus on just getting there first thing and the rest of the day goes a lot smoother. If I sit at home, I make breakfast, then eat it slowly, then surf HN, then it's 10:30am and I haven't done anything.

While sleeping... DONT laugh... i (or my alter ego <-that bastard never sleeps) apparently do lots of problem solving while sleeping, since most of my AHA... EUREKA moments literally wake me up in the middle of the night.

A major part of my work is out giving presentations. I'm currently having breakfast in a hotel in London, and later I'll be talking to 300 people in a theatre.

I just started making an office for myself,

http://dropup.net/7mwid4-2w45cb.jpg.html

still a bit bare, suggestions welcome

Get a giant white board. Its an excellent semi-temporary brainstorming & task-tracking tool.

If you get a whiteboard, I would suggest putting it far enough away from your desk that you need to stand up (or roll over to it) in order to use it. I've found that kind of physical separation very helpful in creating a mental separation between "designing mode" and "implementing mode."

I've been thinking lately about building a white board web app. I can think of a number of benefits that this would offer, but I have also been wondering if not having the mental separation that you pointed out would overshadow all the possible benefits.

Good suggestion. I used to do something similar when I had a rolling white board. I be sure to keep it away from my desk as I was planning/designing and would then wheel it back over to my work area when it was implementation time and/or I needed reminders.

Though, I typically solve my most complex problems by leaving the computer and talking a walk around the block. That doesn't work out so well in these cold South Carolina winters, though. I need to get back out to CA.

these cold South Carolina winters, though

Cold? South Carolina? Does. Not. Compute :-)

I know it's all relative, but I woke up to -24F last week. Makes it real hard to think of South Carolina (of which my only memory is driving there in mid summer in a non A/C pickup truck) as "cold" ;-)

The coldest I have seen this year is about 14-18F. However, the downstairs heat was on the fritz for a bit so I regularly had 50-degree temperatures inside. That wasn't fun.

Oo, you're right. Summers here are absolutely terrible.

Strangely enough, my girlfriend is from New York and finds the cold here unbearable. She explained it as the inconsistency in temperatures as what makes it seem so bad to her. In NY, it was pretty consistently cold in the winter so she was able to expect it and adapt. Down here, you may have a 70F evening and then wake up to 30F and snowing the next day... that or you'll be followed around by tornadoes. :)

a window

heh the window is behind from where I took that photo

Quit smoking!

I work at home in a non-distinct office. I wish that I had my own office some where in the house but the place just isn't big enough to accommodate that scenario.

I am going to try to arrange for this in my next move, though. I find that I have a much easier time concentrating when I can "separate" myself from the rest of the house with the option of wandering about the house with a laptop when I see fit.

I do my "work for money" work at an office, but all of my side project work at home without any kind of office.

In the lab, at school, for the ~30 hours immediately before a project is due. I know my time management skills are non-existent, but I actually quite enjoy coding non-stop for over a day. I usually bring my coffee maker and a bunch of fruit and have at 'er.

I used to have a home office, but we moved into an (allegedly) temporary place and my desk is just in a corner of the living room now. It's not anything approaching ideal and we're hoping to buy a house soon so I can have my office back.

I work in two separate office for most of my time (in Sunnivale and Mountain View), primarily at home during weekend, and in some coffee shop when I am in San Francisco or in other places.

I used to work at a desk shoved into the corner of the guest bedroom. We recently moved the bed out and now it's a dedicated home office. I find it much easier to focus and be productive.

Other: my garage... but there's two small offices built out here.

Some time at home, some time at the office (small software comp) and since I move away from the place where I work I enjoy my laptop in the train to work on my own stuff.

At home, in a distinct office, with a nice automatic espresso machine upstairs, so it's kind of like being in a coffee shop, only much cheaper and less distracting.

Day-job work at office; Part-time startup work at home without a distinct office. Since day-job has more hours/day, i voted "An office (not a home)"

I'm a student. I pretty much work wherever I happen to be, but I prefer coffee shops and the such (or empty classrooms).

A brick-and-mortar computer repair shop, inside a "strip mall" style shopping complex.

I work in Brooklyn. hehe..

I guess 'in bed' counts as 'without a distinct office', right?

Unless you're a prostitute and you have a separate bed for entertaining clients, yes.

I'd like to see a poll on which country people work in.

Deal. You make the poll, I tell you where i work.

At home (Home Office)

Dorm room

a lab at a university

I think some of the most amazing 10-20 liners of code I've written, I wrote in my dreams. Made a major effort to memorize them, and then implemented once I got to a computer.

Related to this, it's amazing when your away from the computer and not really engaged in anything you can think back to a piece of code that was giving you trouble and come up with a fix you couldn't think of while working at a screen.

Or more surprising, twigging a bug in some code you previously considered fine :)

Reminds me of the other day, picking a random transaction and following it's results across about 5 database tables, turned out that one network had a passthrough data size limit of 50 characters. Don't think this would have shown itself for a long time had I not randomly decided to follow the logic path.

Once in a fevered dream (literally) I reimplemented Puyo Puyo in elisp as a derived mode of M-x tetris. It was a blast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puyo_Puyo_(series)

I go to the office every day but I do about 50% of my work from home.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com