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An open office is a cheap short-term solution with high intangible costs in the long term

Open offices initially seem like a smart financial choice. Companies can fit more employees into the same square footage, reducing rent costs per person. The setup costs are also lower—no expensive walls, fewer separate spaces, and simpler ventilation and lighting systems. For the finance department, the numbers look appealing in the short term.

But this apparent saving comes with a heavy price that becomes visible only later. Scientific research repeatedly shows that open offices have negative effects on employees’ health, satisfaction, and productivity. Remarkably, no study measuring productivity found a positive effect of open offices. The often-heard claim that open offices promote collaboration is also not supported by empirical evidence.

The real costs of an open office are not in the setup but in what you cannot directly measure: reduced productivity, higher absenteeism, increased staff turnover, and dissatisfied employees. These intangible costs accumulate month after month and eventually far exceed the initial savings. What began as a financial advantage becomes an expensive mistake that can take years to rectify.

My first music mix

Three weeks ago I decided to get into music mixing and today I ‘finished’ my first mix. I put the word ‘finished’ in quotes, since any creative project is never truly finished. There is always more to tweak and polish.

Anyway, for now I am quite happy with the result of this first project, though it is nowhere near a professional level, as you will hear.

Selecting the song

Since I am no musician, I first had to find the music tracks to mix. After looking around a little bit I the perfect multitrack (as a collection of the individual tracks of a song is called) on YouTube.

The Produce like a pro published a review of the Audient iD14 MKII audio interface, which happens to be the audio interface we use for recording the KENSO podcast.

Anyway, they used the interface to record the song Hold On To Me At The End Of The Night by Steve Maggiora and offer the multitrack to their subscribers.

The editing process

Before starting this edit, I had already read and watched quite some material about music editing, so I had a rough idea on the steps involved in this process. I learned about gain staging, drum EQ and compression, how to solve ‘muddy’ mixes and the use of sidechain compression.

Of course, this was all theoretical knowledge, which I had never applied in a real project. And that turned out to be a lot harder than I thought.

My main problem was that my ears are simply not trained to hear the subtle differences in the music. That obliged my to do a lot of work in soloed out tracks, something most expert recommend not doing because it’s better to work on the complete mix.

Anyway, the mix is now at a point where I think it is quite good and, as promised, I will share the results here.

The song

OK, here we go. I could not find any copyright notice in the downloaded files, but the song is available on all platforms, si I assume I am not allowed to publish the final mix here. However, I hope it is fine if I share just a fragment of the song.

This is what the original tracks sound like. I simple added them all together and did not any processing.

And here is my mix:

And finally, this is the same fragment from the final, professionally mixed, release:

As you can notice, I have been able to improve the unprocessed files significantly, but my mix is still less clear and more muddy than the professional mix.

And that is alright, since my goal is to learn and improve over time.

Now let’s find the next song to edit.

Most people (myself included) should reduce the amount of information input and increment the amount of output (which may be public or not).

Every person is unique. Instead of trying to follow the daily schedule of your hero’s, you should carve out your own path.

Their Daily Ritual, to whatever extent it was truly daily or truly a ritual, was likely an emergent phenomenon. They did not read tons of productivity books and then pick the routine that seemed best to them, as many of us feel compelled to do. They worked, and over time, their ideal routine for sustained output emerged. They started walking and reinforced the paths with concrete as they went. 

I’m picking up music editing and mixing. Here’s why

For the past four years I have edited a weekly podcast. At first using free online tools, the in GarageBand and lately using Logic Pro.

And the more I edit, the more I like it. At the same time I also realize that I still have a lot to learn.

So I took some courses about voice-over editing, EQ, compressors, limiters. I read quite some manuals and watched many hours of videos on YouTube.

I am now on a point where, if I really want to improve my podcast editing skills, I should start working on other podcasts to oblige myself to get out of my routines and templates.

But that would make podcast editing my main job.

Instead, of that, I decided to start mixing and editing music in my spare time.

Music is fun and cannot be confused with work. And to properly mix music, I will have to learn several new skills (I don’t play any instrument myself and can’t sing), most of which will probably be useless for podcast editing.

But I feel that I will also find things that could improve my podcast editing.

Si this is the plan: once a month I will mix a song and post the before and after tracks here on my site.

Next step: find an interesting song in multitrack format to download.

Working slower promotes deeper thinking processes and better results

We live in a fast-paced world. But sometimes working slower is better. This is called ’eufriction’. It means that a little resistance can be good. In the past, efficiency experts like Frederick Winslow Taylor thought everything had to be done as quickly as possible. But when we slow down a bit, we think more carefully about what we are doing. Just as exercising strengthens our muscles, working slower strengthens our thinking.

With eufriction, you consciously take more time. For example, when taking notes or planning something. By working calmly, you better understand what you are doing. You are not overwhelmed by too much information. You not only learn new things but also truly understand them. This way, you can actually use what you learn.

In short: when you work more calmly, you often do your work better. By not rushing, you have time to think. This not only leads to better results but also makes the work more enjoyable. You can also sustain it longer.

Why doesn’t have Amazon a language filter?

Each time I search for a book by a best-selling author, I have to wade thought dozens of translated books in languages I don’t understand.