Why changing scenery changes the work

One of the things I’ve always valued about freelancing is the freedom. Working from home. Working odd hours. Working wherever I can get my head down and actually think. That flexibility is one of the reasons I chose this path in the first place, and most of the time, I don’t take it for granted.

But working from home has a way of shrinking your world if you let it.

Last week, I needed to be in Glasgow for a few hours, and instead of heading straight back, I ended up camped out in the Mitchell Library. Laptop open. Quiet room. No desk wedged into the corner of a bedroom. No familiar walls closing in. Just a bit of space and that subtle sense of momentum you only seem to get when you’ve properly changed scenery.

It caught me off guard how much it helped.

The work itself wasn’t wildly different, but my headspace was. I found it easier to focus, easier to think things through without immediately jumping to conclusions. Ideas felt less boxed in. Decisions felt calmer. There was a rhythm to the day that I don’t always get when everything happens in the same room, day after day.

As much as working from home has its perks, spending most of your waking hours sleeping and working in the same space starts to blur the edges. It can feel a bit like being a teenager again, waking up, working, and switching off all within a few steps of the same four walls. The idea of a dedicated office, whether that’s a spare room or something separate altogether, is still very much a work in progress.

Until then, changing scenery does a lot of the heavy lifting.

How environment shapes thinking

Design doesn’t happen in isolation, even when the work itself is solitary. The spaces you sit in, the people moving around you, the materials and architecture you’re surrounded by all feed into how you think, whether you’re conscious of it or not.

Being somewhere like a library shifts your behaviour. You slow down. You observe more. You become aware of other people quietly getting on with their own work, each for different reasons, at different stages of their day. There’s something grounding about that shared focus, even when no one speaks.

For me, that kind of environment creates better thinking. It pulls me out of the loop of inboxes and tabs and back into a more considered way of working. I notice details more. I question decisions rather than rushing them. The work benefits from that pause.

Why the work improves when you step away

As a freelance graphic designer, a lot of my work is about seeing things clearly. Understanding context. Spotting what matters and what doesn’t. That kind of clarity rarely comes from staring harder at the same screen in the same place for longer.

It often arrives when you step away just enough to see the work differently.

That’s something I try to build into my process, whether consciously or not. Time away from the desk. Space to think without producing. Moments where observation replaces output. It’s the same reason I value discovery and direction early in a project, and why I’m cautious about rushing decisions just to feel productive.

Good design is informed by the world around it. By people, places, materials, and how things are actually used. Spending time in different environments keeps that connection alive, especially when most client work now happens remotely.

Designing space into freelance life

This year, I want to lean into that more. Working from different places when it makes sense. Libraries. Cafés. Shared spaces. Even offices from time to time. Not as a productivity hack, but as a way of keeping my thinking open and the work grounded.

I’m not the most sociable person, and I’m comfortable in my own company. But I also know there’s value in being around other people, even quietly, all getting on with their own thing. That low-level presence can be enough to shift perspective and reset momentum.

It’s a small change, but like most things in freelance life, small changes add up.

This way of working feeds directly into the projects I take on and the decisions I help clients make. You can see that approach reflected across selected work, and in other posts throughout this Journal, where process, context, and thinking are given as much space as the final outcome.

If you’ve got recommendations for good places to work from, especially around Clackmannshire, Stirling, The Forth Vaklley or even further afield, I’m always open to hearing them. Changing scenery, it turns out, changes more than just the view.