How To:
What is Digital Coworking? How Does It Work?
A common format for Digital Coworking is a group of people getting together on a video call and doing the Pomodoro Technique together (25 minutes working / 5 minute break, rinse and repeat).
It’s a great way to get some focused work time in while also getting a little social catch up around the virtual watercooler. Everyone is working on their own individual tasks, completely unrelated, so you can cowork with people across different industries and companies (you can cowork with colleagues but you certainly don’t have to!).
Example 2 hour coworking session:
- Everyone joins the Zoom video call.
- Watercooler: 10-15 minutes of saying “Hi”, catching up, and sharing what each person is planning to work on today.
- Pomodoro One: 25 minutes of working. Everyone mutes their call audio and gets to work.
- 5 Minute Break for chit chat.
- Pomodoro Two: 25 minutes of working.
- 5 Minute Break for chit chat.
- Pomodoro Three: 25 minutes of working.
- Watercooler: 10-15 minutes of hangout time before everyone logs off and continues with their day.
How To Lead A Digital Coworking Session
➣ Helpful Tools
- Zoom Video Conferencing – as the Coworking Leader, you will need the $15/mo Pro plan or else your group meetings will be capped at 40 minutes. *If you’re coworking with only 1 other person, then there isn’t a time cap and you can use the Free Zoom account.
- Cuckoo Pomodoro Timer – create a Cuckoo time for your event and then drop the URL into the Zoom chat. Then other participants can click the Cuckoo link and everyone will be able to follow the same 25 minute pomodoro timer once you start it.
➣ A few things to know about Zoom:
- Gallery View: Recommend to your participants that, if they’re on a computer, they can switch to Gallery View in the top right hand corner of the Zoom window. This will show a grid of everyone’s videos instead of the Speaker View which switches the video between whoever is speaking.
- Chat: Click on Chat in the bottom bar of the Zoom window and it will open a separate chat window where anyone in the meeting can shares links, files, etc.
➣ Information to include in an email to your coworking participants:
- Recommendation to download Zoom to their device prior to the coworking session.
- Zoom meeting link that they can click to join the meeting at the schedule time.
- Intro to the general format of the coworking session (see Example 2 Hour session breakdown above).