Sharing office space can be very lucrative for all kinds of freelancers, as many of them may feel, that they no longer can work at home efficiently. However, coworking spaces can be disadvantageous as well. Read here, how you can profit from it and how to become aware of downsides.

1. FREELANCER TIPS
Coworking Spaces are booming
- their good and bad sides
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24.07.2013
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2. Coworking Spaces
Coworking spaces are here to stay, current trends show.
According to a survey conducted by the Berlin startup
Deskwanted, coworking spaces are flying high, with 2500 being
available worldwide as of February 2013, an 87% increase for
the past 12 months. The idea of sharing a dynamic and creative
office environment with like-minded colleagues seems to have
quite a bit of appeal, especially for freelancers who feel their
home office is no longer a place where they can efficiently work.
Read on if you would like to know more about the reasons why
coworking spaces are so popular among independent
contractors and what their possible disadvantages might be.

3. Advantages
Let’s look at some of the positive sides first. Coworking spaces
offer some aspects of an office your home simply cannot
provide. First and most important, a coworking space
encourages social interaction with like-minded individuals who
work in the same field as you do. A dynamic surrounding of
professionals discussing their projects, clients and ideas can do
wonders for your business. Whether you get important feedback
from those around you, get in touch with new clients because of
them or land a big project someone mentioned to you, the
benefits to your professional networking can be immense.

4. Advantages
The social interactions aspect is great on a personal level as
well. Many freelancers get tired of the solitude of their home.
Coworking spaces tend to be fun and laid-back, allowing you to
connect with other people by having lunch, drinking a coffee
together or even playing the occasional game of ping-pong. The
contacts you make in this environment could gradually grow
from colleagues you enjoy seeing and chatting with on a daily
basis to amazing new friendships.

5. Advantages
Renting an office space could give a boost to your professional
image as well. Meeting clients at a restaurant for lunch is fine
and all, but inviting them into your own office gives you that
extra bit of credibility. Last but not least, coworking spaces tend
to be pretty affordable, much more than an actual office is.

6. Disadvantages
Coworking spaces aren’t perfect however; they do have a couple
of disadvantages. First and most importantly, you will no longer
be the only person in the room, which means you will have to
take others into consideration as well. This means no sitting
around in your pajamas, no loud music, basically no actions that
will make others uncomfortable or distract them. While this
could motivate you to act more professionally, like we
mentioned above, giving up the freedom you have at home can
be a hard thing to do.

7. Disadvantages
This goes the other way around too. It is going to get loud. You
can’t expect everyone to be quiet and not make any sounds just
because you need to concentrate. Peace and silence can be
difficult to get in a coworking space, which could be a deal
breaker if you can’t properly focus in such conditions.

8. Disadvantages
One of the things freelancers tend to mention when asked what
they value most about working independently has to be flexible
working hours. With coworking spaces, you won’t always get to
work when you want. In case you like staying up working until
late in the evening or get up extremely early, you might find the
doors of your coworking space closed. However, some do give
out keys, which could negate this disadvantage, at least to a
certain extent.

9. Coworking Spaces
Now that you know what kind of advantages and disadvantages
coworking spaces have to offer, you can actually decide whether
this emerging trend will work for you, instead of just going with
it because it just seems to be so cool. That being said, it won’t
hurt to look up some of the images of coworking spaces online,
most really do look amazing.

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