# Inhabiting Place By:: [[Ross Jackson]] 2022-12-18 Where do you do your most creative and effective work? Until recently, businesses executed largely as if it was in offices. Increasingly, organizations execute as if it was at home. Depending on the person and one’s circumstances either the office or home could be places of great creativity and effectiveness. But maybe they aren’t. There are a host of other places that could be in contention. A library, coffeehouse, or bar could be viable contenders. The determination of where to work is inseparably contingent on how one works. This isn’t simply a question of where one prefers to be. The key is to focus on determining the location that activates the types of thinking and being required for personal and organizational success. One way of thinking about this is the degree of separation that exists between what is required for one’s work and who one is authentic. If the gap between the two is large, perhaps going into the office is helpful for one to conform to the ways of being which are organizationally rewarded. If one’s authentic self is of value to the organization, then where one works should be dependent on the individual, not the organizational policy. Place matters. But how place matters are complex. It isn’t a simple question of preference or policy. It is the complex nexus of being, becoming, and performance. Inhabiting place is an investment. Those moments matter individually and organizationally. Like any investment, one should consider the return. In the age of choice, work can become emancipatory and fulfilling. When it does, that will be a place to inhabit. #### Related Items [[Work]] [[Authenticity]] [[Remote Work]] [[Coffeehouses]] [[Identity]] [[Thinking]]