The simple answer is yes, having no fixed office is truly possible for just about anyone. However the answer is also not so simply a no. While the potential is there for anyone, the actual feasibility of it may be questionable for a number of reasons. These reasons may not be always clear cut, but follow along and i would love to see what your thoughts are on the possibility.
To confirm the yes, there is no reason why a very large number of people should not be able to work without an office. The technology is available in Laptops, phones, broadband internet, and the other little things. The facilities are available, in cafe’s, parks, the beach, hotel’s and pretty much anywhere else you can think of. So putting the right technology with the right location for you can mean an office anywhere you like be it local, national or even international.
To move to the other side of the argument, i believe that there are still some reasons for some people that having no fixed office is well either a bad idea or just not possible. Really if you want to work and not have any fixed place you are to work from there are a few traits that you really need to have. These are common to work in an office as well however their benefits can be greatly expanded upon through not being in an office.
1. Good Time Management – Being able to manage your time is essential, when working in an office their is a certain degree of time management built into the environment. However once you leave this environment you become much more open to other distractions. In the same strain if you have good time management skills there is good potential to greatly increase the effectiveness depending on where you choose for your office on any particular day.
2. Ability to Minimize – Working without a fixed office means you need to work a lot more electronically, you need to be able to live without piles of papers around. While you may want to keep some paper based records, find an area at home for a filing cabinet, and limit as much as possible paperwork to this place. The more paper’s you need to have with you, the more difficult it is going to be for your to really work from anywhere. This can be a good thing to take to heart even if you must have an office.
3. An ability to focus – Most office’s provide few distractions, but most every office does have some distractions, many of the places you may choose to make your office for the day have many more distractions. Most places, unless your own home, or somewhere remote, have plenty of public exposure, and people and cars and other things moving around. While for the most part they are just part of the surrounding it is easy to get distracted, so a keen ability to focus is essential.
While even if you do not have any of the above skills, all is not lost you may still be able to take on the ideal of having no fixed office and still succeed, maybe it will be a little more difficult and things may not entirely work out. However it is still possible, it just takes more work to make it work for you.
Their is still however some bad news, having no fixed office is not for everyone, their is by default some industries and some roles that do kind of eliminate the ability to cut out the need for an office.
The first one is if you work for a company that designates where you work from. This kind of makes it difficult to cut yourself from having an office you need to go to every day. However it is not impossible, as some companies do offer the ability to telecommute, which can give you similar freedom’s as not having a fixed office.
Another example is that of Retail, by nature retail requires your presence in the one place and unless you do not directly work in a store it is hard to move away from the store. Especially if you are in management at a store level in Retail it is very difficult to make the no fixed office a reality
Even though there are hurdles and some roadblocks to having no fixed office it is something that is truly possible and achievable for the right person.