The Way I Work

Tell us about the way you work and what you like best about it...

  • Do you have a great work/life balance?
  • Do you have flexibility for family life?
  • Have you saved time on commuting?
  • Have you more time and space for other interests?
  • Have you chosen to work longer hours at an appropriate time in your life?

The Way I Work invites workers to describe your non-traditional way of working - whether flexible, remote, self-employed, portfolio career, or any of the other many different patterns of agile working - and what are the best things about it.

Whether you're working a pattern that you negotiated to suit yourself, or you have already begin carving a new career - whether you've set up your own business or braved asking your employer for flexible hours - or even if you're a successful entrepreneur running an innovative company of all-flexible workers ...

Tell us your story!

The Way I Work stories will appear once approved by the project editor. (This is to avoid spam.)

Total immersion
Lesley Fidler

I find it difficult to sustain the concentration needed to produce technical reports when sitting in an open-plan office. My butterfly mind (a strength when dreaming up solutions to problems but not much help in a busy office) has plenty to distract it and gazing into space in pursuit of the perfectly-turned sentence invites friendly conversations since it looks as if I am day-dreaming. My most productive time to work is late afternoon and early evening. If I am in the office at this time hunger starts to strike and there are the hourly train times to think about. But when I am at home with a laptop and a view of the bird feeder, there is food in the kitchen next door and I have reduced distractions to a minimum, then it is surprising how quickly I can get a paper or advisory letter written up. Everyone benefits - it costs the client less for my time, the work gets finished promptly, I save my commuting time and costs and, possibly best of all, I feel that I have been able to think deeply about the issues and gain a personal satisfaction from a job that I have done as well as I possibly can.

Leeds
Tax Director, Baker Tilly
Benefit of working from home
Nancy Weitz

One of the things I really value about home-based working is lunching at home.  Most people in offices face using up a significant chunk of their lunch hour waiting in queues at restaurants or sitting at their desk eating a soggy sandwich lying smashed in a briefcase all morning. I saunter into the kitchen where I make fresh, homemade meals exactly to taste, listening to music or reading a book.  Then, thoroughly refreshed, I stop to pet the cat and saunter back to my desk.

Cool

home!
self-employed
Love the flexibility...
Helen

Helen WhiteheadI love the way that I work because it's so flexible.  I'm able to work at the times that suit me when I am at my best. That can mean early in the morning, or late at night.  It means I'm not tied to my desk in the middle of the day, I can go for a long lunch, and I'm accountable for my output not for the hours and minutes I work.

Leeds/Nottingham, UK
Company Director