You’ve heard of co-working right? When small business owners, employees and entrepreneurs from different companies come together to work in a common office space. People who work in coworking spaces can connect and bounce ideas off of each other, much like traditional office spaces. Sales people in between calls or cities, who need a hot desk. Entrepreneurs who want to save money on overhead. Parents who have kids at home and need some peace and quiet.

But are these open, collaborative spaces all they’re cracked up to be? As the leader in flexible office space in the Hartford area, we explored the benefits of having a true, private office (with a door!)

Greater productivity. The urge to participate in friendly, neighborly chatting can get in the way of true nose-to-the grindstone productivity. When you’re in an open, cubicle environment (like hotdesking) you’re more likely to engage in banter and water-cooler chat. While this can be a nice break from being alone in your home office or at your kitchen table, :15 minutes here and there can cut into your productivity dramatically. Suddenly it’s 4 p.m. and you’re wondering where the day went.

Fewer distractions. Open, cubicle style desks offer the benefits of collaboration, but that collaboration can be a distraction to some. As others push their chairs back from their desks and chat about the PowerPoint they’re building, your train of thought gets derailed. Sure, you could put in some earbuds and try to drown them out, but when you have your own space, you have greater peace and quiet and a door to shut out the distractions.

A space to call your own. Laptop, check. Notebook for note-taking, check. Cell phone for conference calls, check. Thermos full of piping hot coffee, check. A granola bar, an apple and a bottle of water to get you through to lunch, check. Portable speaker for your tunes, check. You’re ready to work and you have your own space to spread out and get the job done. In a cubicle-type space, you may hear the crinkling of a bag of chips, the beats emanating from someone else’s ear buds… or worse, the smell of microwaved salmon around lunchtime. When you have a private office with a door, you’ll have a desk and chair where you can enjoy all of your creature comforts – without having to put up with anyone else’s.

Quiet, please! In a coworking space, other professionals may be on Zoom calls or on their phones right beside you. It’s hard to have your own conference call – or hear yourself think! – when someone 4 feet away is talking about the World Cup match or the need to reach 1 million units sold by the end of the quarter. What’s worse, you may be subjected to someone else’s music. Even if they have ear buds in, often times you can still hear it. The next thing you know, you have an earworm and you’re singing along, “yes I like piña coladas… getting caught in the rain…” instead of writing your proposal. An individual office allows you to be in control of the sound level – and be the DJ, too.

Sobon & Associates offers flexible office space on daily, weekly and monthly rates, as well as executive board rooms and training space for meetings and events. Conveniently located at the junction of route 84 and 691 in Cheshire, we’ve been proudly serving the Hartford area and Cheshire, Wolcott and Waterbury community for 30 years.