6 tools · field notes
Five rooms, nineteen uses, fourteen days
The same square metres
A home that takes on paid work does not grow to make room for it. Over one fortnight, five rooms built for five things were asked to carry nineteen, and on forty-seven occasions two of them wanted the same room at once.
50notes on a home that did not get bigger
6parts, from what the rooms carry to what can be done about it
19uses now carried by five rooms that were built for five things
47collisions over 14 days, where one use took a room another use was already in
Nothing here is a survey and nothing is a benchmark. Every figure on this site comes from one household's log, kept through fourteen consecutive days and marked up as it ran. Nobody is identified anywhere — not a person, not an address, not a city. This site does not say whether anybody should work from home: it says what a home is being asked to absorb when they do, which is a different question.
Six parts, from what the rooms carry to what can be done about it
Every note belongs to one of them. The line at the foot of each card is what that part came to on the record counted here, stated as a count rather than as a conclusion.
The rooms
What the rooms actually carry
Five rooms, five original purposes and nineteen current uses. How a kitchen acquires a sixth job without anybody deciding that it should.
nineteen uses in five rooms
Collisions
Where they collide
Forty-seven times in fourteen days, one use took a room another use was already in. Median thirty-five minutes, and twenty-one of them in the kitchen.
forty-seven in fourteen days
Who gives way
Who gives way, and why
Thirty-one of the forty-seven fell on one of the two people. Not because of fairness or temperament, but because one job has appointments in it and the other does not.
thirty-one of forty-seven on one person
The gains
The eighty-eight
Episodes that happened only because the work was in the building — nearly twice the number of collisions, counted the same way, and landing on the same person.
eighty-eight against forty-seven
What is fixed
What is fixed
Floor area, daylight, heat and sound are properties of a building, not of a schedule. What each one does to the arrangement, and which of them can be bought off.
four constraints, one of them cheap
What to change
What a household can change
Most of the obvious rearrangements were tried during the fortnight and recorded. Three worked, several moved the problem, and one thing helped more than any change of furniture.
three that worked, several that moved it
One flat, counted three ways
Three panels built from the same fortnight: every room with the floor it occupies and the uses it now carries; every collision, where one use took a room another use was already in; and every episode that happened only because the work was in the building. Nothing here is a survey and nothing is a benchmark. It is one household's log, kept as the fortnight ran, and the only claim made for it is that it was kept.
RoomAreaBuilt forCarries nowHrs/day
Kitchen and dinerSix uses, more than any other room, and the only one in service before seven and after ten
16 m²
Cooking and eating
CookingEatingPaid workLaundry and adminCallsCompany
14.5
Living roomThe largest room and the second most contested
19 m²
Sitting
SittingPaid workCallsTelevisionCompany
11
Bedroom one
14 m²
Sleeping
SleepingDressing and storagePaid workCalls
9.5
Bedroom twoThe small bedroom became the desk, and stayed a bedroom
9 m²
Sleeping
Paid workCallsGuest sleeping
8
Hall and landingTen square metres of the sixty-eight doing one job, and a quarter of the floor
10 m²
Circulation
Taking deliveries
1.5
Paid workDomestic workRest and sleepContact and care
Five rooms covering 68 square metres, built for five things. Between them they now carry nineteen uses. Four of the five carry more than one, and kitchen and diner carries six. The median room is in use 9.5 of the 16 waking hours. Areas are to scale against each other. The arrangement of the rectangles is not the layout of the flat: the log records what each room is and what happens in it, not where the walls run.
WorkDomestic
Kitchen
45 min · A
WorkRest
Living room
70 min · A
WorkDomestic
Kitchen
25 min · A
CareWork
Kitchen
20 min · A
WorkCare
Living room
55 min · B
WorkRest
Bedroom one
40 min · A
DomesticWork
Kitchen
30 min · A
WorkDomestic
Kitchen
35 min · A
WorkRest
Living room
90 min · A
RestWork
Living room
25 min · B
WorkCare
Kitchen
15 min · A
WorkDomestic
Kitchen
50 min · B
CareWork
Living room
35 min · A
WorkRest
Bedroom one
60 min · B
WorkDomestic
Kitchen
20 min · A
DomesticWork
Kitchen
40 min · B
WorkRest
Bedroom two
30 min · A
WorkCare
Living room
45 min · A
WorkDomestic
Kitchen
35 min · A
RestWork
Bedroom one
20 min · B
WorkCare
Kitchen
25 min · B
CareRest
Living room
35 min · A
WorkRest
Living room
30 min · A
WorkDomestic
Hall and landing
10 min · B
Twenty-four collisions, each one use taking a room another use was already in, at a median of 35 minutes. They fell sixteen by the interruptible job and eight by the scheduled job. Eleven of them happened in the kitchen. Twenty-four of the forty-seven, chosen to show the range of lengths rather than to summarise. Across all forty-seven the median was thirty-five minutes, twenty-one happened in the kitchen, and thirty-one were absorbed by the interruptible job.
A domestic task done inside a work gapWashing, cooking ahead, a repair waited in for
1912
31
A delivery taken
118
19
A meal cooked rather than bought
86
14
Rest taken at the point it was needed
74
11
Care of a household member or neighbour
43
7
An appointment attended without asking
33
6
The interruptible jobThe scheduled job
Eighty-eight episodes that happened only because the work was in the building, across six kinds. Fifty-two of them went to the interruptible job and thirty-six to the scheduled job. The same interruptibility that made one person absorb thirty-one of the forty-seven collisions is what let them take fifty-two of these. It is one property producing both columns, which is the whole finding of this site.
The part nobody measures
Almost everything written about working from home measures the work. Output, hours, meetings, whether people are as productive, whether they are happier. All of it is about the job.
The other half of the arrangement is a building. A flat or a house was designed, built and furnished for a set of activities that did not include anybody's employment, and when the employment arrives the building does not expand to accommodate it. The same walls, the same floor area, the same number of rooms, now doing more.
That second half is almost never counted, and this site is one attempt to count it. When paid work competes with domestic use for the same room, teams need a record of hours and projects as well as a record of space; they can take a look at the platform in context before choosing what evidence belongs in a trial.
One fortnight, one flat
The record is a log kept by a two-person household in a sixty-eight square metre flat, both of them working from home full time, across fourteen consecutive days. Every episode of use was written down: which room, what for, how long, and — when two things wanted the same room — which one gave way. A separate perspective on homes, workplaces, or remote work is available from Dezeen.
The flat has five rooms. An estate agent would describe each of them with one word, and those five words are what the rooms were built for: a kitchen for cooking, a living room for sitting, two bedrooms for sleeping, and a hall for getting between them.
Over the fortnight those five rooms carried nineteen distinct uses.
| room | built for | carries now | hours a day |
|---|---|---|---|
| kitchen | cooking and eating | 6 | 14.5 |
| living room | sitting | 5 | 11.0 |
| bedroom one | sleeping | 4 | 9.5 |
| bedroom two | sleeping | 3 | 8.0 |
| hall and landing | circulation | 1 | 1.5 |
The kitchen is in use for fourteen and a half of the sixteen waking hours, and six different things happen in it. It is the room that is never off duty.
Forty-seven collisions
A collision, in this log, is a specific and modest event: one use takes a room that another use was already in, and somebody moves.
There were forty-seven of them in fourteen days. The median lasted thirty-five minutes. Twenty-one happened in the kitchen.
None of them is a disaster. Nobody shouted, nothing broke, and most were resolved by one person picking up a laptop and going somewhere else. The reason they are worth counting is not that each one is serious. It is that there were forty-seven, that they are invisible to every measure anybody applies to this arrangement, and that they did not fall evenly.
Thirty-one of the forty-seven
Two people absorbed those forty-seven collisions between them. Thirty-one fell on one of them.
The reason is not domestic politics and it is not fairness. It is the shape of the two jobs. One of them had thirty-four scheduled calls over the fortnight; the other had nine. A scheduled call takes a room, because it has to happen at a stated time and it has to happen somewhere quiet. Everything else gives way to it, not because anybody decided it should but because it is the only one of the activities with an appointment attached.
So the person whose work is interruptible absorbs the interruptions. That is almost tautological, and it is nonetheless a real distribution of cost that nobody agreed to and nobody can see.
Eighty-eight of the other thing
The same log records episodes of a second kind: things that happened only because the work was in the building.
A delivery taken. A wash put on between two tasks. A meal cooked properly instead of bought. An hour of rest taken at the point it was needed rather than at the point it was permitted. A neighbour helped. An appointment attended without asking anybody.
Eighty-eight of them in fourteen days. That is nearly twice the number of collisions, and every one is a genuine gain that an office arrangement does not offer at all.
The two numbers belong on the same page, counted the same way, and the honest reading of them together is that this arrangement is substantially better than the alternative and that the improvement is not free.
The finding
Fifty-two of the eighty-eight gains fell on the same person who absorbed thirty-one of the forty-seven collisions.
That is the result this site is built around, and it is not what either side of the usual argument predicts. The person who gives way more often is not being exploited: they are also the one who gets most of the benefit, and for exactly the same reason. An interruptible job can be interrupted by a scheduled call, and it can also be interrupted by a delivery, a wash, a walk or a neighbour.
Costs and benefits are distributed by the shape of each person's work. Not by negotiation, not by fairness, and not by who is more considerate.
That has a practical consequence. Two people in a household doing the same arrangement are not having the same experience, and the difference between them is not a character trait that can be talked about. It is a property of their employment, and it will not change because they are nicer to each other.
What this does not claim
It does not claim the numbers travel. One flat, two people, no children, fourteen days. A household with a child, or with three adults, or in one room, produces a different log — almost certainly a worse one, and certainly not this one.
It does not claim the arrangement is bad. Eighty-eight against forty-seven, and nobody in this household wanted to go back.
It does not claim the rooms should be rearranged. Several of the obvious rearrangements were tried during the fortnight and are recorded; most made things slightly better in one room and slightly worse in another, because the floor area is fixed and that is the whole constraint.
And it does not identify anybody. No person, no address, no city, no employer.
The order of the parts
Six, and they follow the log rather than an argument.
First, what the rooms actually carry — the nineteen uses, and how a room acquires a sixth job without anybody deciding. Then the collisions: what they are, where they happen, how long they last. Then who gives way, which is where the finding sits. Then the eighty-eight, counted the same way. Then the things that are fixed — floor area, light, heat, sound — and what can and cannot be done about each. Last, what a household can actually change, which is short.
Not one of those pages draws on anything beyond the log itself.
Practical comparisons
Tools for work that has moved into the home
Three different buying questions, each assessed against a defined workflow rather than a generic feature count.
10 platforms · space plan
Hybrid space booking
Rooms, desks, team days, check-ins and the cost of inaccurate availability.14 tools · working matrix
A remote collaboration stack
Tasks, documents, meetings, files, automation and operational evidence.01 / 06nineteen uses in five rooms
What the rooms actually carry
Five rooms, five original purposes and nineteen current uses. How a kitchen acquires a sixth job without anybody deciding that it should.
02 / 06forty-seven in fourteen days
Where they collide
Forty-seven times in fourteen days, one use took a room another use was already in. Median thirty-five minutes, and twenty-one of them in the kitchen.
03 / 06thirty-one of forty-seven on one person
Who gives way, and why
Thirty-one of the forty-seven fell on one of the two people. Not because of fairness or temperament, but because one job has appointments in it and the other does not.
04 / 06eighty-eight against forty-seven
The eighty-eight
Episodes that happened only because the work was in the building — nearly twice the number of collisions, counted the same way, and landing on the same person.
05 / 06four constraints, one of them cheap
What is fixed
Floor area, daylight, heat and sound are properties of a building, not of a schedule. What each one does to the arrangement, and which of them can be bought off.
06 / 06three that worked, several that moved it
What a household can change
Most of the obvious rearrangements were tried during the fortnight and recorded. Three worked, several moved the problem, and one thing helped more than any change of furniture.
The short version
The costs and the gains land on the same person
Five rooms built for five things carried nineteen. Forty-seven collisions in fourteen days, median thirty-five minutes, thirty-one of them absorbed by one of the two people. Eighty-eight episodes that an office does not offer at all, fifty-two of them to the same person. Both columns follow from the shape of that person's job, not from anybody's conduct.