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Michael Pollan’s Writing House

Posted by Scott

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Michael Pollan's Writing House
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Michael Pollan's Writing House


Author Michael Pollan (In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto and The Omnivore’s Dilemma) spoke at U.C. Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall tonight. If you haven’t heard of his books, you may recognize him from the recent film Food, Inc. — which I highly recommended seeing.

In one of his books, A Place of My Own, Pollan describes how he personally, with no carpentry experience, built this small structure behind his house in Vermont. This whole thing might be ringing a bell if you read the Linda Aldredge post, but remember her tree house is a real, fully livable home, isolated in the woods, in a tree. She definitely wins the battle of priciple, but Pollan gets the honorable mention for pragmatism. Although how many people just happen to have an acre of woods in their backyard? Or happen to own an acre of raw forest for that matter… I think this is an east coast thing, the woods always look amazing out there.

This “writing house” — as he describes it — is a great concept and I am willing to bet it’s an incredibly productive environment. I often find that working in the same space as I live presents unique challenges to motivation and focus. This seems like a cost-effective alternative to having different addresses for your working and living spaces.

How many of you work primarily from home? Do you find there to be a conflict between convenience and distraction in the home work environment? Comment