A Shrewsbury guide for National Work Life Week

Working from home was meant to give us our time back. For a lot of people it did. No commute, no rush-hour traffic on the Column roundabout, lunch in your own kitchen.

But somewhere along the way the kitchen became the office. The laptop stays open on the table through dinner. Slack pings at 8pm feel like they need an answer. The working day doesn’t end. It just fades out.

This week is National Work Life Week, run by the charity Working Families. It’s a good moment to ask a simple question: where does your work actually stop?

The problem isn’t the work. It’s the room.

When work and home share a space, your brain gets no signal that one has ended and the other has begun. The sofa you relax on is the same one you took a difficult call on at 4pm. The table where you eat is where you were reading spreadsheets an hour ago.

Offices used to do this job for us. You left the building and work stayed there. The commute, for all its faults, gave you twenty minutes to switch modes.

You don’t need a five-day office to get that back. You need a boundary.

Three boundaries that work

1. A start and finish ritual. Something that tells you work has begun and ended. A walk round the block, a particular playlist, shutting the laptop and putting it in a bag. Small, but it counts.

2. A separate space for focused work. Even one or two days a week away from home makes a difference. You get a clear run at the work that needs concentration, and home goes back to being home.

3. People around you. Working alone every day is quiet, but it can also be isolating. A shared workspace gives you the low-key company of other people getting on with their day, a chat at the coffee machine and someone to say good morning to.

We wrote more about the cost of always working from home in Is Working From Home Silently Harming Your Mental Health?

Why coworking makes the boundary easy

Coworking gives you a front door between home and work without a lease, a long contract or a commute across the county.

At Co-Founded, on Welsh Bridge in the centre of Shrewsbury, a day pass is £30 and runs from 8:30am to 6pm. That includes:

  • A desk with a 24″ monitor
  • Gigabit WiFi
  • Breakfast and snacks
  • Unlimited tea, coffee and soft drinks
  • Printing and scanning
  • 2 hours in a soundproofed call pod for private calls

If you only need a couple of hours, desks are £5 an hour. If a couple of days a week becomes a habit, memberships start from £95 a month, and our £180 option saves 25% on day rates.

When you need to meet people rather than work alone, we have soundproofed pods for 2 to 4 people at £15 an hour, a 6-person meeting room at £35 an hour and a 12-person boardroom at £245 for a half day.

A simple experiment for this week

Try this: pick one day this week and work somewhere that isn’t your home. Notice how the day feels. Notice how it feels to walk out at 6pm and leave the work behind.

Then notice your evening.

If it’s better, you’ve found your boundary.

Book your first day

Co-Founded is on Welsh Bridge, Lower Claremont Bank, Shrewsbury SY1 1RT. There are car parks within walking distance and bus stops nearby.

Book online (here) or call us on 01743 623 183 and we’ll show you round.