No More Sink Full of Mugs

Anyone who’s ever run a coworking space knows that while it’s wonderfully fulfilling work, it’s also not without its un-glamorous and downright gross parts. Something always needs your attention. Culture shifts in unpredictable ways. Without careful planning, the job can easily drive one to burnout.

Since I first got started organizing coworking communities in 2007, I’ve learned the hard way that so much of what it takes to maintain sanity comes down to doing a lot of big and little things to make the community something that not just you, but everyone, can feel ownership over and permission to help make better.

I realized that I could help people avoid a lot of the pain of learning how to handle things the hard way by writing down some of my favorite simple tricks and making them available in the form of a handy little eBook.

And voila, here it is! I’ve been wanting to publish something for a long time now, so getting this out the door has been huge for me. It’s focused completely on practical solutions, with very little in the way of theory and fluff.

It focuses on how to deal with some common issues:

• how to keep the kitchen sink from constantly filling with mugs and dishes
• how to keep up with the never-ending demand for coffee
• how to give people a wide variety of opportunities to connect with each other without being overly pushy
• how to accommodate never-ending changes to membership statuses with no delay and minimal labor
• how we set up our memberships so we never have to chase down non-paying members
• how we strike a balance between maintaining consistent business hours and accommodating the needs of members who need to start work early and stay working late
• how to handle members who we fear may not be a good fit
• how we handle the sharing of limited resources like printing, coffee, and conference rooms
• how we handle conference room bookings to minimize labor, potential conflicts, abuse, and maximize availability for everyone
• how to give people who belong in the space but can’t afford it a way to be members
• how to set up a membership exchange volunteer program

In addition to all of this, I share eight key rules of thumb that can be applied to any of a number of situations. These basic philosophical approaches have been a core part of what’s allowed us to run an extremely efficient operation with a continuously strong culture for over seven years.

Jump on it!