cmart's Hardcore Coworking
Calls to Action
- Read the draft protocol and tell cmart your comments.
- I expect and welcome comments like “This would work for me if you changed XYZ”.
- I also welcome comments like “This is stupid and I don’t like it”, but we might not reach a compromise.
- If you want to join, paint your availability on this when2meet poll.
- If you haven’t already, join the mailing list where we coordinate and announce meetups.
Draft Protocol
Hardcore Coworking meets at a library or cafe where folks are not already accustomed to ‘just hanging out’. Avoid homes for this reason. Avoid table-service restaurants where waitstaff cause interruptions. (The most likely first location is PSU library or an inner SE Portland cafe.) It’s better for the group to take up multiple tables than to overcrowd one table.
Arrive at Hardcore Coworking with a pre-meditated idea of what you want to accomplish. Ideally, write a list of tasks before going. It’s okay for your task to be “determine next steps for XYZ project”. Just show up with something to do.
Tasks don’t have to be for a job. Studying, personal development, or journaling is fine. The only forbidden tasks are leisure activities such as texting, non-work group chats, games, social media, or non-work-related videos. Consider setting your devices to Do Not Disturb or shutting off your phone – you have important work to do.
Each clock hour starts with a 10-minute break. Work time begins exactly 10 minutes past, and lasts until the start of the next hour. Thus, hardcore coworking consists of alternating 50-minute work and 10-minute break periods. Here is an un-postponable timer that chimes at the start of work and break times.
Work time is for working. During work time, limit your conversation to the bare minimum needed to accommodate others (e.g. seating or power cords). It’s okay to eat or drink iff you are simultaneously also working. Avoid activities that create the appearance of procrastination (marit ayin). If you must do these things, step away where the group cannot see you.
Break time is for relaxed talking with the group, moving your body, de-focusing your eyes, and (if you must) checking your phone. You don’t have to share updates on your tasks, but it’s fine to do so spontaneously. It’s okay to continue working past the start of break time (or resume working before the end), just do not expect a distraction-free environment. If you must extend your break talking outside of break time: (1) Don’t. (2) Step away where the group cannot see or hear you.
It is optimal to arrive and leave during break time. You may arrive or leave during work time, but try to avoid disturbing others.
It’s possible that some/all of us will take a 1-hour break (skipping a work period) to get lunch elsewhere. If your appetite doesn’t align with the group’s, take your own separate lunch break.
After the last work period, we do not linger past the 10 minute break period, at least not at the coworking location. The point is to set and uphold the norm that “this place is for Hardcore Coworking”.
Meta-commentary
Hopefully all of this makes sense as applying psychology to defeat akrasia, learning from ~20 years of mistakes, but I expect us to further revise the protocol after trying it once or twice.
“Hourly 10-minute break is not hardcore”.
It is hardcore for coworking. Also, breaks with movement are good for your body, and make it easier to keep going for several hours. Also, you can muster more stamina for unpleasant tasks if you anticipate breaks (“just another <50 minutes”).
“Why cowork if no talk for most of it?”
The short answer is to enable body doubling of the sort that in-person workplaces sort-of-naturally provide, but even moreso to this end.
“Stop every hour would break focus. I want stop when task finished.”
Yes, but if you’re with other people who each have different tasks, there is a coordination problem. I hope this works for most tasks for most people, but perhaps not all for all. Also, you’re allowed to continue working through the breaks.
“Can I attend a remote work meeting while I’m there?”
If you’re mostly just listening, and you modulate your speaking volume to a reasonable minimum, then yes, sure. If you need to talk in the meeting for more than a couple minutes, move to your own table.
“Can we have longer hangout or discussion period afterward?”
I am deliberately not organizing this in the same package as hardcore coworking. If folks want to make such plans of their own, please go ahead. I only request that you don’t stay in the same location as hardcore coworking, and don’t frame it as a continuation of the same thing.