Modern office work can be done just about anywhere – the pandemic taught us that – but still we continue to spend most of our time indoors. Meet two experts that are advocating a work life spent outdoors, and discover the huge benefits it can provide.

By now we’ve all seen social media posts from the “digital nomads,” sitting with laptop on lap, drink in hand, and a beach paradise at their feet. ‘Good for them,’ the white-collar workers mutter from their offices.

Sound familiar? But imagine if that could be you. What if you needn’t waste a sunny day – and become better at your work as a result?

Get outside of the box ‘to think outside the box’

Fortunately, more and more people are discovering the advantages of outdoor office, such as Charlotte Petersson Troije, lecturer at Malmö university in Sweden. She became so enthralled by the topic, in fact, that she decided to make it the central research question of her PhD at Mälardalen University where she explored its potential. Calling from a sunny corner of her garden, she recounts from her thesis the first “aha” moment while walking and talking with her university colleagues one day back in 2010:

‘Suddenly, I got this warm feeling inside, as it struck me how positive our conversation was. I looked around and found that my other colleagues were engaged in vibrant conversations, too. Simultaneously, I became aware of the breeze, the sound of the birds and the leaves, the sun on my cheeks, also sensing that my body was in motion. The question hit me like lightning: What is happening here? How come we never normally do this?’

Ever since this moment, she has continued to pursue outdoor office work not just in research but also in practice by helping to spread the word.

“People have been so positive and curious about how office work may be brought outdoors, and to learn about its positive effects. However, there certainly also are those who questioned whether it was really worthy of study,” she reflects.

The natural world is calling

To any would-be doubters both then and now, she suggests considering modern work life from a broader timeframe. From a historical perspective, for example, spending 90% indoors (as “normal” Europeans and Americans do today) is what’s strange, not the other way around.

For the greater part of homo sapiens’ 1-million-year existence, we have spent 100% of our time deeply enmeshed in the natural world. At the dawn of industrialization just 3% of the human population lived in cities, with most everybody else still spending their days under the open sky, in contact with the soil, animals, and elements. Fast-forward to today, and nearly two-thirds of the global population now live in cities with a lifestyle that is increasingly spent ‘indoors, sedentary and on screens.’

“This combination is strongly associated with negative impacts on people’s health,” shares Charlotte Petersson Troije.

“We need to think outside the box in tackling these challenges – literally – in what I call turning work ‘inside out.’ Our modern work life is rife with mental health issues and chronic stress issues. Nature contact, meanwhile, is found to have long-term positive effects on both.”

Support by modern research

Indeed, research supports a strong correlation between spending time outdoors and stress reduction and better creative problem solving. Workplaces and views with greenery have also been found to contribute to higher work productivity and job satisfaction.

“When you think about it, assuming problem-solving can only be solved indoors in front of a screen is obviously counter-productive.”

Yet few have dared to make the move outside for themselves. Charlotte Petersson Troije’s research has identified several underlying barriers as to why – with one standing out: Ourselves.

“Employer attendance policies, allergies, disabilities, access to green spaces and bad weather – there are many real challenges to participating in outdoor offices,” she shares, before continuing:

“But most surprising among them is how many people express feelings of guilt and shame when they work from outside, as though they would be seen by others as not ‘really’ working.”

With greater awareness of the benefits of outdoor office work, however, she believes that this can be overcome in time.

International Outdoor Office Day

This is where Ioana Biris comes in, who is on a mission to spread awareness of what outdoor office has to offer.

“Basically, everybody I know is currently or has been burnt out,” shares Ioana Biris from one of her own favorite outdoor offices in Amsterdam’s Tolhuistuin Park. Originally trained as a doctor and social psychologist, she too experienced a series of “aha!” moments that would lead her down a completely new path.

“I remember that I started doing ‘walk and talk’-meetings at work and found it so refreshing. The motion, the green spaces, the creativity, the energy. I wondered why I hadn’t been doing this all along!”

This realization was the catalyst behind her founding the social enterprise Nature Desks, where Ioana Biris now works as a researcher and consultant with the aim to bring together work and well-being through urban nature. With the goal to get the word out to a wider audience, she decided to go big – launching the first Outdoor Office Day in Utrecht in 2019:

“With Outdoor Office Day we invite (office) workers to connect with nature and be active during their workdays,” explains Ioana Biris, who had just finished wrapping up the sixth annual event.

“This year in the Netherlands, there were many outdoor events in places like Rotterdam, Utrecht, and Amsterdam. But the Hague was truly special, where hundreds of central government employees went outdoors to meet, learn, and walk.”

From its meagre beginnings of around one hundred participants, Outdoor Office Day now draws thousands of workers out of their offices and into daylight, with a growing list of participating entities from the business, public and NGO spheres in eight countries.

Are Outdoor Workspaces right for you?

Yet while the outdoor office movement continues to grow, Ioana Biris stresses that her’s is not a mission of convincing people of what to do:

“I strongly believe people know what they need, and I don’t want to tell them what that is. But I think that for many, the possibility of working outdoors simply doesn’t even occur to them. Outdoor Office Day is just about inspiring people to explore whether this is something for them.”

To anybody else who is yearning for the sunshine from behind their office desk, Charlotte Petersson Troije encourages them to drop their bad conscience and give it a try – research is on their side, after all.

“There is much to say about the potential benefits of integrating the outdoors into everyday work life. I do not know how many times I have heard that bringing work outdoors makes people feel and think better. It also helps us to experience work differently, as we literally are outside the box – feeling both freer and more connected – to self, each other and the environment. That is where I think that the greatest potentials reside.”

 

Also read the op-ed by Suston’s editor Jonathan Fraenkel-Eidse covering his experiences with Outdoor Office.

 

 

Lead Photo: Ioana Biris (Photographer: Carly-Wollaert)