Veronica Guguian and Jillian Vorce explore the importance of adaptability and open-mindedness in work environments, sharing strategies for productivity optimization and discussing the benefits of various work setups, including remote work and collaborative spaces. They emphasize individualized approaches, highlighting the significance of simplicity and self-awareness in creating conducive work environments.
Join Veronica and Jillian as they navigate the diverse landscape of work environments, offering personal insights and valuable strategies for thriving in any setting.
Discussing work environments, they emphasize the crucial roles adaptability and open-mindedness play in professional success. They share insights on optimizing workspaces and reveal their go-to tools for maximum productivity and creativity.
From the comforts of home offices to the buzz of co-working spaces and cafes, they explore the pros and cons of various work settings, stressing the importance of flexibility in choosing the right environment for each task. As they reflect on their evolving preferences, they underline the significance of self-awareness in proactively creating the environments they need at this stage of their lives and businesses.
People & Resources Mentioned in This Episode
About Veronica Guguian
- Website: https://spinideas.nl/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/veronica-guguian
About Jillian Vorce
- Website: https://thejilliangroup.com/better
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillianvorce
Credits
- Music Composed by BeeLa Music
- Voiceover by Amanda Balagur
Jillian Vorce
Hello and welcome to episode 26 of creative collaboration conversations with Veronica and Jillian. In today's episode, we're going to chat about our working environments and how we do our best work, what it is that we need, et cetera. But before we dig into that, let's do our typical kind of check ins. So. Hello, Veronica. How are you?
Veronica Guguian
Hello.
Jillian Vorce
What's happening in your world? What's going on with you and Bruno?
Veronica Guguian
Well, I feel nothing has changed. And everything changed. It's a new year, new energy, and can you believe it's February? Because I know, and I think today's episode is irrelevant because as we were chatting before we pressed the record button, I do feel a need to change when it comes to my work environment. Don't get me wrong, I love working from home, but I kind of need a change. And I don't know if it's the weather or what it is, but definitely I need a change. How about you?
Jillian Vorce
Oh, goodness. So working environment for me, I have been location independent, as they say, to feel like I know. So I don't know if you're familiar with that movie like Benjamin Button where he does like the reverse aging thing. I feel like that's kind of like my life and definitely my career because I feel like I'm now at the point of wondering. The idea of going into an office every day feels suffocating to me. I can't comprehend that. But the idea of sometimes semi-regularly or whatever, maybe, I don't know, two days a week would probably be my max.
Jillian Vorce
The idea of going into an office to work kind of to work with people collaboratively has become more appealing to me lately, which is surprising because I've been kind of anti that for so long just simply because I valued so heavily my independence and the flexibility. But yeah, because I think maybe, I don't know, I'm used to working alone. But anyways, we can chat more about that. So it's like working in an office or working in a home office or another option is the co-working space. So have you ever experienced that or what have you, Doug? Because I think you also, all of them, I think. Tell me about your experience.
Veronica Guguian
So I think I did everything that you just described. Working from an office, like the nine to five mentality that you kind of embrace, because that's the only thing you know. And then you go and corporate and then nine to five doesn't really exist. You end up working sometimes at 12:00 and you're like, oh, I should go home. Working for myself, for a small company, in a small office, having my own office in a coworking space. Working from my home office, working from home while working for a company, I think I kind of play with everything, working from a cafe from time to time, or meeting people. And honestly, I don't think there's the right answer. I think it's the right answer for the right moment. Yes, because we do change a lot and we do need something else in different moments.
Veronica Guguian
I said, at this point, actually, I used to love working from home. And with the pandemic was like, oh, yes, actually, this is way better. Sure, I'm not the type of person that will stay in one place, and even if I have my working station here, you're going to see me working, or you're going to find me working from my couch, or sitting at my coffee table, or going in the bedroom, because I just need the change of environment, or getting my laptop and going to a cafe that I haven't done in some time, and I think I need that or moving to my dining table just because.
Veronica Guguian
But I think it depends on what you need to do as well, because I do prefer having Zoom calls if I have to have Zoom calls to have them from home, because you do need privacy or the ability to concentrate and have a degree of privacy. And a cafe doesn't offer you that. Or sometimes co working space doesn't offer you that, however, working space will offer you that. But sometimes, funny enough, before the new year, before Christmas, actually, I went to a conference and we spoke about this in an episode, and I had to carve a couple of hours to work. Those were two very productive hours in a very Sally busy environment.
Veronica Guguian
So sometimes that thing, at this point, like we're discussing, I think I need to get out of my home office apartment because I feel deep in my creativity, but I do need to create. So that means probably I will need a couple of hours at a cafe, a couple of meetings outside of my office, and then I'll be craving the solitude of my office.
Jillian Vorce
Yes, it's interesting because I've been working remotely or location independent, as I mentioned, for so long. I think obviously by the time Covid came around, it didn't make a single difference for me. But it was really wild to see a lot of clients trying to adjust and a lot of people who are accustomed to the office environment. And also through that, it helped to kind of magnify a couple of things that I had been able to garner a lot of experience with. And it also showed me things that I had just learned to do that I didn't really think about until I did. But things that are helpful anyway. And so one of those things is, again, going back to the flexibility that I have valued so much, otherwise known as control. Yes. May as well just say it like it is control.
Jillian Vorce
I guess I've valued that more so than anything, really being able to control where I work, when I work, all the things, right. But in doing that, it also kind of required me or encouraged me or kind of led me down the path of also kind of controlling my schedule and being very, over the years, getting better and better at kind of optimizing my schedule. So certain things, for example, I knew got to a point where meeting with people in person, because even though I've worked remotely for so long, ten years ago, doing Zoom meetings all the time wasn't as common, right? No, years ago I was, but ten years ago I was not. So even at that time, I would do a lot of meetings in person, right.
Jillian Vorce
And so I started to realize it's not efficient for me to get my suit on and all of these things and go schlep somewhere for one meeting. So I began doing, like, clusters. So I would target certain cities or wherever I was, and then I would pull all the meetings in. So then I ended up kind of learning to become more efficient. So I call them suit days. So on suit days, yeah, I was out, and I would have eight to ten to twelve meetings that day, just right in succession. And therefore, it was kind of optimizing that day. It was like optimizing that suit. Yeah. So wearing that, all the best out.
Veronica Guguian
Of this to get advantage.
Jillian Vorce
Yeah, it was great. And then there were all these ancillary benefits as well, like compounding benefits. So one thing, of course, is if one person canceled was like, oh, great, now I have time to have a coffee or do some work or stretch my legs. That's one thing. As opposed to going all the way somewhere and then finding out whatever. And the other benefit is because I was meeting so many people in succession, and I would deliberately overlap them a little bit. The person I was meeting with would see that when they finished, that there was somebody else waiting. So then they realized it's not really all about them, there are other people too. And then also I could add value by introducing those two people.
Jillian Vorce
And so that next person would come in and they had already met the person before them, and then they would also meet the person after them. And so I did that. So it's like as kind of optimized as possible, and then kind of funny anecdote, I had my certain hubs that I would do, like certain locations in certain cities and areas. And one of them in particular, I came in one day and they were like, oh, Jillian, are you here for your confession day? And I'm like, what? And they said, yeah, we all know when you come in that you have your seat and that's over there. And we all laugh about, what is Jillian doing? And we've decided people are doing Confession with you. So that became the. So, yeah, that's how it happened. So everybody would come in.
Jillian Vorce
So anyway, that's one thing I did, but that was an example of not only maximizing the suit and also the resources to get to location x, but also from an energetic standpoint, right. Because I also learn. And that, to me, feeds into the bit about creativity, because parallel to that, I also realized what works best for me in terms of how to get my creativity flowing is listening to music via AirPods and having a giant whiteboard and just going at it. And so that's my creativity time. That's like my best time to be creative. And so I would schedule those times, we've talked about this on other episodes, but I would schedule those times of my thinking blocks. And so at first it was tricky to be like, okay, now it's time to go be creative.
Jillian Vorce
But because of the consistency of it, like the ritual of it, I was able to do that. And for me, as soon as I see a big whiteboard and I put my music in, it takes me away. And then I already have prepared ahead of time the things I'm going to be thinking about or whatever. So I would schedule those times already trained to that. Yeah. So I have learned. So I use my calendar and my schedule as a way to facilitate as much as possible when I'm efficient, when I'm not all the things, right? So when I can be creative, when am I doing meetings, when am I accessible, like, all of the things to try to optimize. So for me, my working environment is more about my calendar than it is about my physical location.
Veronica Guguian
I must say I envy you a little bit when it comes to that because I tried it, but my brain is not working like that. So it depends how I feel, because if I feel tired, I will not be able to be creative. I can do a lot of things, even if I'm tired, and be efficient, but the creativity will not come. So let's say I had a bad night or I just worked late or my dog was sick or shit happens.
Jillian Vorce
Yeah.
Veronica Guguian
And I woke up and I have like 3 hours scheduled for creativity. But if my brain is tired, I will just not be able to produce anything.
Jillian Vorce
So can I ask you a quick question about that? Because I can identify with that. And now this is going to be me flexing my nerd status. Yes, but this is a serious question before I do that.
Veronica Guguian
Something like that?
Jillian Vorce
No, this is a serious question though. So is there something that you currently are aware of that something that, you know, that helps to kind of turn on that lever for you? Like inspire you, motivate you, wake you up, get you going, get you kind of jazzed? Is there something, is it a song? Is it like a yoga pose? Is it if I run up and down the stairs, if I go look at some photos or meditate or is there something that, you know, that really helps you to kind of ignite the energy?
Veronica Guguian
Get out of my normal environment, go and work at the cafe or something like that.
Jillian Vorce
It could be like walking down the stairs or walking around the will be.
Veronica Guguian
Much more do a walk. But probably that will solve it to a specific point. And I think I'm associated with it if I'm tired and I will be in my house environment even if I have my work set up that I know is work and actually it's a shift in my mind when I get to my work station. Now you see the couch, but usually I don't see it. I see the environment that is set up for work and my mind switches. So if I'm tired, I will be. But yeah, I will just lay down for ten minutes because I'm tired. It's hard to switch.
Veronica Guguian
So for me it will be if I'm that tired, I just need to be in a different environment where I get the energy to just the fatigue or forget that now you haven't slept enough, just grab a coffee and power to it. But actually I wanted to say something related to what you said. I do relate. When I was working for the media company, I used to travel quite a lot and I do enjoy going and having clusters of meetings. It's super efficient. And be in a hotel, like a restaurant that usually has shitty coffee. That's the second part. And just have people coming to you instead of traveling, especially when you're in your normal environment. So finding parking spots or basic things, it's a hassle. And that it tends to be very efficient.
Veronica Guguian
However, what I'm noticing, actually even now I could do it, but getting tired, like the energy level, the older I get, the lower it goes. So I maybe could do that for one day, but I don't think I could do it how I used to do it for two days in a row, not to have breaks. Did you experience that? A shift or a switch? When?
Jillian Vorce
Oh, sure.
Veronica Guguian
The older we get, sure. The worse we get.
Jillian Vorce
Yeah. I feel more discerning, the more discerning I get, which is a whole nother kind of revelation that I have been discovering in how much that influences the way I show up and the way I work now and my decision making and all of that. So that whole piece. But it's relevant for this conversation in terms of work environment and scheduling, for sure. It's like how long I schedule things for.
Veronica Guguian
What type of environment you need, and I did.
Jillian Vorce
Type of environment?
Veronica Guguian
Yeah, sorry.
Jillian Vorce
Yeah. And also, if I am going to have a meeting in person or something like that, I look at the day and the week. So I do my weekly planning every Monday and make sure I'm set and know what's going on, et cetera. Even when I'm scheduling meetings with people, I am very kind of aware, I don't look at just when there's a hole in my schedule. I also look at the composition of that day or that week and what else is going on and what other things can I still cluster around it still? Is there some other errand I have or somebody else I could meet or drop in or something? And then I think about the priority things I need to get done for that day or that week and think about it energetically.
Jillian Vorce
So sometimes for me, I'd rather do the meetings first in the day, so I get it over with and then I can come back and focus. But other times, in my normal default, my best work, my highest creativity, is in the morning. So I also like to just wake up and get at it, and so therefore prefer to do my meetings later in the day when I'm half delirious.
Veronica Guguian
I think it's important to discuss this, because when you are younger or at the beginning of your career, the enthusiasm and the desire to learn is overcome.
Jillian Vorce
Or.
Veronica Guguian
It'S much more important than your energy or your time or being efficient. You just want to go for it. You just want to do it. But I think you need to take all of this into account if you really want to get the best out of you, and it doesn't really matter. I would have loved to know these things when I was younger and how to structure my meetings and everything, and to figure it out when I'm the most efficient and most creative. So to know how to split my day, for example, now I know, all my meetings will not be planned before 10:00 because that time for me too. I think we actually had an episode about this as well.
Veronica Guguian
There are small things that you can change in your schedule that will help you be more productive or more efficient or actually feel better, and then you can do all of these things and they will come naturally. And I think it's actually a mindset now we are more set, like, what do we actually want? What's important for me? How do I want to show up and how do I want to feel at the end of the day? Something that no one is actually talking about. Because after a day of ten meetings, you are dead.
Jillian Vorce
Oh, sure, you can't do that. I was dead, but I also was still energized because I loved being in the flow with those people. And I also felt like this massive compounding effect happened. So I was able to sustain that for a while. I was doing 100 coffees and lunches per month for a considerable stretch of time. So it was like this massive burst of productivity in terms of all the benefits of connecting with people face to face and all the things that I have mentioned. But definitely that in and of itself was not sustainable. But for the period of time that I did that, it continues to pay dividends many years later. But I like what you just said about how to feel at the end of the day.
Jillian Vorce
One place I go to from there is thinking about kind of how to balance these two pieces, about how do I feel during the day or at the end of the day, versus so in other words, being specific, if I don't feel like doing something and I just don't, and I kind of reschedule it, aka procrastinate it or whatever else, sometimes it's like if I'm really sick or whatever, I have to do that. But I also, for me, try to have, I have to have the awareness about this kick the can routine that can just create even more stress, because then the things I need to work on just crumb this overwhelming mountain of things. And that's so demotivating for me.
Jillian Vorce
So I try to balance those two things where sometimes it's like, I think, and certainly becoming a mom and then becoming older, having much less time and much less energy has been, they're kind of like the boss now. So when I have time to work, this is the time that I have to work. So if I have to work on something and I'm just not feeling it, this is where I was going to earlier. One of the things that I have learned to do to help kind of shake myself, to wake me up. And this is like, yeah, everybody hopefully will already know their thing or will discover their thing because it's really helpful to know it. This self awareness, for me, spreadsheets, I know, it's so embarrassing, but it's like, hey listen, it is what it is.
Jillian Vorce
So yeah, if I'm not able to kind of get into the flow with something, I can jump into some data, some spreadsheets or whatever and start efficiently. Yeah, start analyzing things and then that helps me to start getting ideas. It's not even the ideas, it's the curiosity piece. The curiosity needs to be awoken. Yeah, that's what it is. I was like, oh yeah, and then I start and then I go, so therefore that's what I have learned, like trying to find or another thing I love is books.
Jillian Vorce
So if I'm just not getting it, I can also go look at my little book collection and start to look through and then I can open up any of them and just read a couple of paragraphs or something and then that gets me going, it makes me think, oh, I just read that article or this podcast or that person and then I'm off. So it's helpful, yeah, to be able to find the thing that is, it's kind of like the reset button. If we can all find our reset button to kind of wake us up, it can be a really helpful tool to deploy if or when you need it. And for me it's more regular that I need that than it used to be because of being tired, having family and all these other kinds of distractions, so to speak.
Jillian Vorce
So that's why I wanted to make a point to bring that up.
Veronica Guguian
Actually that's a good point. And for me now listening to you I realize for me that's walking and being outside and my Airpods and just putting the music super loud that I can't hear anything around me and going, that helps me think and ideas are coming and connections are made or cleaning the house is super strange, but cleaning the house and you're focused on mundane things that you don't really think about then, oh, and usually I listen to a podcast or music while I do that and then, oh but that reminds me of that and I could do that and sometimes I just take like 2 seconds to write down because the older, actually it's not, it's gone but you're just forgetting, let's be honest.
Jillian Vorce
Yeah.
Veronica Guguian
And now I just realized discussing meetings and going outside or how do we work? I used to walk a lot and I used to walk between meetings, different locations or walk home instead of taking a tram or whatever because that made me think. And I just felt the need to be outside and to. I don't know. It's a good workout, but also it's a good mental exercise. And now working from home, you don't do that so much. So I'm always trying to find pockets of time to walk. And when I have the dog with me, that's brilliant because like at least 3 hours a day you are outside working. But walking the dog, especially my dog, which is very energized compared to walking alone, is slightly different because I do need to pay attention to my dog, right?
Veronica Guguian
To be present there most of the time. So it's slightly different than just walking endlessly. You just don't really. You have the direction, but you can take a right turn that maybe is not scheduled and end up getting lost. I actually love to get lost in cities because that's the way you learn. And even now I still tend to get lost sometimes even in Amsterdam. For me that's the best. Because then I'm like, okay, so I'm discovering something.
Jillian Vorce
So I want to go back to one other thing were talking about earlier about with COVID and people starting to work from home and just this idea of being location independent, I also think, and it's somewhat related to what you're talking about, I think it's an amazing experience for people to kind of, I want to say take advantage of or to put to use is if you have the opportunity to be location independent, to actually take it. Because it's really, at least personally speaking, I've had that opportunity to travel and work. We drove across the US, for example, and I just had my MacBook. And as soon as we found a WiFi signal, we would just pull over and work.
Jillian Vorce
I've worked at campsites, like on the side of a mountain and all of these wild locations in the jungle in Costa Rica. So many places to be able to work. But it was really helpful to me as part of the process of lightening the load because I used to think more conventionally that I needed this big desk. So I had a beautiful mahogany desk and I used to think I had a mini, what do you call staples. What did you call the Staples? It's a US office supply store. I had all the office supplies. I had all of this stuff because it felt like, oh, I have a home office, like an office has all of these things. So I need all of this junk to make my office set up. Yeah.
Jillian Vorce
So I thought I needed all these things, which I really didn't. And so that was part of the process for me.
Veronica Guguian
Mindset.
Jillian Vorce
Yeah, mindset. And just learning, what do you really need? So then when I was able to just bring my computer with me and still do work, it really helped me to realize how little we actually need and depending on what we do, of course, but depending on what we need. So, yes. Your point about sometimes you need privacy or need to not have a lot of background noises and things like that. So I would always schedule to know ahead of time where I would be and what time those calls were going to be and what the option was. Could I rent or reserve a soundproof room, or could I go sit in a car, or there was, like, some hallway somewhere, something I would always find a little alleyway or somewhere that I could go.
Jillian Vorce
But I think, overall, that experience was really fulfilling for me personally, but also quite useful for me as it kind of evolved the way I think about business and expenses and work styles, et cetera. So I love the opportunity to help encourage other people. On the far end of that spectrum are the digital nomads. So you may know some, I think the first one I knew of. Yeah, the first one, I don't know if you know Natalie Cissen, the suitcase entrepreneur. So I think she's the first one I knew of, like, I don't know, ten years ago or something. So she's the suitcase entrepreneur. Her. And then there's Yuval Ackerman. I don't know if you know her. And then a friend of mine, Edwin, so you probably know a bunch, too. So that's a whole different level. And I actually know some families. Yeah, Chelsea.
Jillian Vorce
I know some families who are digital nomad families that literally travel the globe. You know, that might be scary for some people, but it's just, I think, interesting to kind of throw that idea out on the horizon. Like it's out there. It may not be for you now, it may never be for you, but just having the awareness that there are different ways to live and to work and to think.
Veronica Guguian
And I think today's society actually enables us to do that. It's much easier to do it, and if we need to find something good in the pandemic. And what happened is this fact that people are more accepting, more open minded. I do want to make a point, though. What we are talking about here, it doesn't need to be for everyone. Some people actually need that office to be productive and that's fine. So there's not a right or wrong way of doing it and everything needs to just fit you.
Jillian Vorce
Yes.
Veronica Guguian
And I think it's very important to say that because I don't want anyone to feel like I need an office or I need to be a nomad or I need to work from a cafe or honestly, there's no right answer. And what I'm learning, it's actually what I said before, depends where you are in that moment of your life. There are moments where I actually just want to be here in my house office and no one bothers me because I need to focus and moments when I just can't stand my home office.
Jillian Vorce
Yes.
Veronica Guguian
So there's no right answer. It's just what you feel at that point. But don't invest a lot of money in a very fancy office space that I'm telling you for sure isn't worth it.
Jillian Vorce
Yeah, it's not necessary. So can I just ask one more question? I feel like the last kind of bucket that for me fits into this conversation about work environments. And maybe you see it differently, but for me I think about kind of tools because it's related to. It's like the next step of what I mentioned earlier about do we need a big desk? Do we need filing cabinets and whatever all the other offices, like all this paper and stuff, like staplers and do we need all these things or what do we actually need? So I was curious. I don't know. I don't want to put you on the spot, but I was thinking.
Veronica Guguian
It's a good question.
Jillian Vorce
Yeah, it's like this idea. If you were stuck on an island and you could only bring three tools, or if you could make your dream office or your ideal work environment or whatever it is. What are the tools that are like your must haves?
Veronica Guguian
It's a good question. And I must say for me at the beginning they were like, I need the desk and I need the laptop and I need that and I did not. And I do love a big screen. So I do work with my screen and I love that depending on what you do. And if you have working meetings, that's brilliant because you can have all your tools and all the documents here and still see the person. And for me it's important when I speak with someone to actually see the person, even if it's a screen, but you get a connection. But in reality, what I need is my laptop and a good Internet connection. And one of my notebooks, like, I know you love taking notes digitally. For me, I need to write it down. That's how my brain works.
Veronica Guguian
And this is what makes me happy. And that's it, actually. And of course, one of my favorites.
Jillian Vorce
Pens, a pen and a cup of coffee. We're good. Yeah. So mine, I already mentioned the whiteboard spreadsheet, music spreadsheet. But tool wise, it's just like you said, it's really an Internet connection. So for me, it's like the most simple, simplified version of what the tools are. So for me, it's email, it's LinkedIn, it's calendar, and it's a CRM. So those, for me, are like it. And then the airtable is in there. I would say boomerang. So, a plugin for Gmail, I love that in my booking calendar system, you can book me and then my CRM is Dex. So for me, there's like a million other things that we can use, and I used to use, and I still do, but if I had to really boil it down, it's like the simplest things.
Jillian Vorce
And so I also feel like it's so freeing to simplify things and to streamline things. And so that's been another kind of revelation for me over the years is this idea of less is more in getting rid of clutter. And it's like mental clutter, and just like office clutter and all of these other things, let's be honest, the more.
Veronica Guguian
Things we have, the harder it is for us to produce because our attention get lost in so many other things. And I do like the tools that you, of course, without. WhatsApp is very important for me because. Sure, yeah, WhatsApp or airtable, it's non negotiable. It has to be there. Or mailer light or gmail or things like that. But bottom line, we don't need any of them. If we have a laptop and a good Internet connection, this is what you need in order to be able to reach your client and speak and talk with them and things like that. I think we just need it. I always say, let's go back to the basics and let's simplify. What do I really need and what can I cut out?
Veronica Guguian
And in order to find out what I think you just need, like you said, what would you take if you'll be on a deserted island? So basically, you just need to put yourself in that situation. And I don't have anything, like, can I still work? And then you'll see what you actually need.
Jillian Vorce
Yes, I think so. Anyway, great chat about work environments and whatnot. Hopefully folks got a new idea or at least a new way to think about things. But it was fun to have this chat with you anyhow, as always. Yeah. So I guess we'll wrap 26 and onward to 27.
Veronica Guguian
Thank you all for listening, and see you next time.
Jillian Vorce
All right. Cheers.
Veronica Guguian
Cheers.