Underrated life hack: working outdoors

I’m a great believer in small habits that make a difference. One that I’ve recently discovered is taking my laptop and working outdoors, either from a park or from my rooftop patio. Above: the view from my rooftop at around 8pm. It may look a little gloomy on camera, but in person it’s a gorgeous day, with a light breeze. I can see dark clouds gathering to the south, while in the north over the crest of a mountain I can see the last of the sunset. I can hear the sounds of birds chattering all around me along with the typical urban white noise of passing cars and pedestrians on the road below.

I recently got a laptop with a matte screen, and though it was pretty expensive, I think being able to work outside without significant glare will more than pay off over time. I’ve already tried reading some papers outside, taking meetings outside, as well as writing outside (for instance, for this blog post). In all cases, I believe my experience was significantly improved by working outdoors (though one time my laptop started overheating so I had to go back inside).

To state the obvious, going outside is something that correlates with a better mood for almost everyone. But sometimes it’s hard to make time to do so. Even though I try to take walks outside most days and also walk to the office every day, practical realities mean that I have to be looking at a screen indoors most of the time. This means that despite getting quite a bit of outdoor time relative to the typical CS PhD student (ok I know this is a low bar), this might only amount to an hour or two at the beginning and end of my day.

Now whenever I’m working from home and feel like it, I go up to my rooftop patio or walk to an outdoor garden nearby to do some mundane work. I usually prefer to use 2 or more screens for more intensive work and can’t really work from my laptop by itself, but I’ve basically started doing my more “chill” work outdoors. Speaking of chill, I’ve also noticed it’s much harder to get aggravated or in my own head when I’m working outdoors and (sometimes literally) touching grass. Things just don’t seem very important anymore, but at the same time things being unimportant mean that I just do them without thinking too much about it. For instance, I wrote this blog post in a 20 minute break whereas normally I can sit on ideas for posts for days. Maybe it’s also because being outside makes me more aware of the passage of time — since I began writing this post, the wind has picked up and it’s much colder, while the light continues to fade. Lights are turning on in the city around me and if I wait longer, it’ll be completely dark on the rooftop.

This was a rather simple post, but the point is I think this is something that you should try if you haven’t yet. If your laptop doesn’t have a matte screen, this may be kind of difficult, but there are many laptop shades available online that you can use. It’s also possible to look for a structure with overhanging roofs, awnings etc, like the outside tables of coffee shops. I would have never attempted this before because of glare, but knowing that this is such a great experience now, if I was forced to go back to my old laptop I’d probably buy some equipment just to make this more feasible. If you try it out, also email me and send me a pic of where you’re working from!