Surf’s up, ladies & gents. Feel free to take some time to enjoy all that the internet has to offer – at the office! Take it from us, it’s a-ok, according to a study from the University of Melbourne. Published last April, the whitepaper found that people who engage in “workplace internet leisure browsing” are actually 9% more productive than their peers that don’t.

Hold off on the day-long Facebook extravaganza, though. The study measured surf time as “a reasonable limit of less than 20% of their total time in the office” – so over the course of a typical 8-hour workday, about an hour or so. Any more than that and productivity plummets – especially for the 14% of “internet addicted” workers.

The science comes from the recent prevailing wisdom of many productivity experts: your mind needs a break sometimes. Melbourne’s professors likened it to lecture halls – you’re able to concentrate for about 20 minutes before getting bored and/or tired, yet once you get a break (or get dismissed), you’ll be right back to the same energy level as you were at the start.

The research leads us to believe that it’s browsing the internet that causes the spike in productivity: you might be learning how to do tasks faster, or gaining valuable work-related knowledge perhaps, but we’re not so sure. If that’s the case, then what about the worker who goes straight to hamster on a piano?

YouTube addictions aside, we’ve got a hunch that web browsing is just a red herring. Actually, it’s the break to do something other than work for a couple of minutes that does the trick. Remember the Pomodoro technique from our post on productivity apps? It asserts the same sort of thing – 20 minutes on, 5 minutes off works wonders.

What do you think? Do you work better if you’ve got free rein to long-board all over the interwebs, or does it just distract you? What do you do during your breaks that helps you to get more done when you’re working? As always, let us know!

There’s nothing we like more than poking a little fun at office jargon. Sure, we’re totally guilty of using all of these, but we still cringe a little when we hear ‘em.

Here’s a handful of the most overused office slang terms from the Pyramid (aka…our slang representing where we work).

Value-Add
When it’s used: “We really were only contracted to make them a logo, but if we’re able to make them a custom font too, that’d be a nice value-add!”
What it means: Completely optional, but something that shows your business partner that you were thinking over and above what you were supposed to do. Of course, you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.
What it really means coming from your boss: You have to do it.
When to use it: Use “value-add” when you want to show-off that you went over and above the call of duty on a project for someone else, even if it was just the next logical step. It makes you look good, your boss look good, and everyone who didn’t “add value” wishes they did.
Why we love it: Value-add is one of those terms that says “here’s something extra that we did for you that you won’t have to pay for. Now, let’s do business again,” all in two words. It sounds important, and completely sidesteps the money discussion – give them enough value-adds over time, and people won’t care how much you cost.


Circle back
When it’s used: “I’ve got to head to a meeting. Let’s circle back and talk about this later.”
What it means: Let’s talk about this same topic later.
What it really means: I’m too busy to talk right now, and I need some more time to get my thoughts together, but trust me, we’ll talk about it soon.
When to use it: When you’re severely unprepared for a discussion, use “circle back” to reassure the person you’re talking to that you aren’t blowing them off. You’re actually going to be making a complete three-hundred and sixty degrees to talk to them later!
Why we love it: It’s another way to make the office sound like Top Gun. Whether it’s a crisis situation at work, or listening to “Highway to the Danger Zone” as loud as possible, everyone needs a little more Maverick.

It is what it is
When it’s used: “Did you see that sign they want us to use? Yeah, I did – it is what it is.”
What it means: “I agree with your opinion, but there’s nothing that I can do.”
What it really means: I agree with you, but just don’t have the energy to fight for it. You’ve got to pick your battles, man!
When to use it: You’re disappointed, your teammates are disappointed, and someone you can’t offend created the disappointing item, so you’ve just got to move forward with it.
Why we love it: Usually preceded by a sigh – “it is what it is” works best for those who have to balance client and other department relationships. It’s shows your coworkers that you’re on the same page, but you’ve got to begrudgingly go against their wishes for the greater good. But, just like salt, only use it sparingly- “it is what it is” gets annoying fairly quickly.

Buttoned Up
When it’s used: “Looks good, but we probably need to double-check and make sure it’s all buttoned up.”
What it means: Let’s make sure it’s finished, proofread, fact-checked and ready to go.
What it really means: I didn’t do a good enough job last time to feel confident about sending the final product out, let’s do it one more time.
When to use it: You’ve got to cover for not reading through the document your team made before sending it off to higher-ups or clients at the very end. “Button up” reviews usually lead to proofreading changes and a few revisions.
Why we love it: Corporations love buttoned up! Not only are you saving yourself from a costly typo or mistake, but you’re saving the team from them, too. Unless, of course, if you could’ve caught those same mistakes earlier, or if it’s 4:30 on a Friday.

Did we miss any? What kind of lingo flies through the halls at your office? Do you hate them or love them? Drop us a line in the comments!

We’ve been talking about work being anywhere you want for some time now.

We’ve covered tips on working from home and the big positives that come from collaborating at the office, too. But what if we said that the two aren’t mutually exclusive? Thanks to coworking offices that are popping up everywhere we turn, they aren’t.

What’s coworking you ask? Well, it’s much easier to understand once you hear the mantra that started it all: people work better together than they do apart- even if they aren’t part of the same organization. The premise is simple – you pay for time in an office space with others you may or may not know, whether that’s via a pop-in or by buying an unlimited monthly membership. It’s geared mostly to the freelancing set, but we’ve seen that it’s become a stopping off point for workers who need a change of scenery, too.

Coworking offices provide that much needed “middle ground” that’s needed to be productive on your own but also touches innovation, too – facilities give patrons the ability to work out new ideas with the others around them, sometimes loudly, which isn’t always welcomed in a coffeehouse setting.

Also noted, was that a large group of “at home” workers flock to coworking facilities for a completely different reason that getting work done; they just want to meet other people.

It isn’t just a Midwest thing, either – besides the Factory in our hometown of Grand Rapids, both coasts have their share of facilities like ActivSpace in Seattle, BetaHouse in Cambridge, Shift Workspace in Birmingham, and the COOP in Chicago. Coworking’s even taking hold overseas in Shanghai!

What’s most flattering, though, is that several of these office spaces are using Turnstone products in their new set-ups. We’ve always tried to design between focus and collaboration with our workstations, and with 79% of workers worrying about missing human interaction if they were to telecommute, we think that coworking facilities might be the solution. We’re really excited that they’ve been choosing us to bridge the gap.

For a more comprehensive list of coworking facilities near you, try checking out wurkspaces.com.

We’ve had it with flavored coffee creamers. They’ve got way too many calories, way too much sugar, and as one of our passionate coworkers yelled, “they’re half full of vegetable oil!” (he’s probably exaggerating).

So, what’s an office dweller to do without a reliable way to get their coffee with cream? Build an office cafe bar, of course. Here’s the top five things you’ll need to be on your way to office barista stardom:

1. Espresso – The backbone of any tasty coffee drink, and remarkably hard to come by in the workplace. If you’re lucky enough to have an espresso machine, go with that, but otherwise, you could buy a handheld handpresso machine.

If the boss won’t pick up the bill, try our bootleg espresso recipe that you can make with a regular drip coffee machine – finely grind 1/4 cup of dark beans, and use those with 1/2 cup of cold water. Voila! 1/4 cup of bootleg Italian black gold.

2. Milk – Want your drink cold? Just add it. Need it steamed? Stick it in the microwave. There’s little milk can’t do- and if you’re feeling too lazy from yesterday’s all-nighter, it does a body good on its own.

3. Sugar Cubes – You’ve probably already got a big tube of family sized sugar in the cabinet, but we’d suggest going with cubes- they’re easier to measure, and are less noisy than packets.

4. Whipped Cream – Now we’re getting fancy! Even if your drink is a normal cup of joe, just add whipped cream to the top, and count the amount of times someone asks what you’re drinking. We’ll bet it’s over five.

5. Chocolate Syrup – The best way to make a mocha besides hot cocoa packets, and a drizzle on top of the whipped cream takes it a step up.

Say goodbye to flavored creamers for good. Short of a set of swanky coffehouse-style Lincoln Lounges, with these five ingredients, the sky is the limit. In fact, there’s at least nine different drinks you can experiment and surprise clients with (from the macchiato to the cafe breve and cafe au lait), all under $15 total.

Did we miss anything you can’t live without in your office cafe? Let us know in the comments!

“On my way to LAX – typing this from 30,000 feet above the ground is wild!,” said her Facebook status update. It might as well have been signaling a new era.

Plane flights always have been solitary – electronic devices are turned off, seat belts are fastened, and work gets stowed in the overhead compartment. Now, the final frontier’s been crossed; wireless internet manifest destiny is here. On board, you’ve got the chance to do the same things in the clouds as you do under them, comfortably on the 802.11g standard that’s common on most wireless networks. The “dark time” of a five hour flight leaves a huge opportunity to be productive, but what’s it really going to change?

Our latest research on work styles would dictate that Mile-High Wi-Fi will only end up revolutionizing one half of work. Focused “head-down” tasks reap the benefits of being connected high in the sky, but the intangible positives that come from rapid-fire collaboration with co-workers doesn’t change; which tells us that the time spent in the office is as important, as being able to focus during the other half of it- whether that’s on a flight or out for coffee. It’s efficiency that’s key on both ends.

Now that working can be done literally everywhere, that importance of collaborative time isn’t lost on us. We’ve been creating tools that make it easier than ever to learn and share between teammates – the time that’s showing to be more necessary each day. We think that once you’re able to take control of inter-office time, the opportunity to maximize the previously unattainable moments is going to be a lot easier, even if it’s at 30,000 feet. You might even be able to sneak in a Facebook update or two.