Stop Asking How Much Office Space You Need. Ask What You Need It For.

Choosing a workspace often starts with the wrong question: How much space do we need?

For a small business, that can lead to a surprisingly expensive answer. You start with a headcount, estimate desks, add a meeting room and storage, then start looking at leases.

After running a flexible workspace in Adelaide, I’ve found a more useful starting point is to look at what the business actually needs to accomplish during a normal working week.

A freelancer, a remote employee and a five-person consultancy may all need somewhere professional to work, but their requirements can be completely different.

Start with the week, not the floor plan

Before looking at offices, write down what happens in a typical week.

How often do you need to work somewhere outside home? How often do you meet clients? Do you need a permanent workstation, or somewhere you can use occasionally? Are early mornings or evenings part of your routine?

These questions can quickly change what “the right office” looks like.

For example, a consultant who spends three days visiting clients may not need a full-time private office. A remote employee who works from home most days might value a consistent desk for focused work more than a large shared area. A small team may need less desk space than expected but more access to a meeting room.

Takeaway for this week: Track where you actually work for five working days. Note when you need privacy, meetings, equipment and focused time.

Separate essential space from nice-to-have space

It is easy to be influenced by what an office looks like rather than what you will actually use.

Instead, divide your requirements into three lists:

• Essential: without it, you cannot work effectively.
• Useful: it would improve your working week.
• Nice to have: appealing, but unlikely to affect your results.

For someone spending hours on video calls, reliable internet and a suitable setup may be essential. A large lounge area might be nice, but not particularly useful.

This matters because every additional facility has a cost, either directly or through the amount of space you are committing to.

Takeaway for this week: Reduce your workspace requirements to five genuine essentials before comparing providers or properties.

Don’t overlook the hours you actually work

A workspace can look perfect during a midday inspection and still be a poor fit for your routine.

If your most productive hours are early in the morning, evening access may matter. If you regularly cycle to work, end-of-trip facilities could be more useful than an extra breakout area. If client meetings are occasional, access to a professional meeting room may make more sense than maintaining a larger office all week.

These details sound minor, but they determine whether a workspace works in practice.

At King Work, for example, conversations with people considering dedicated desks often come back to practical questions about access, equipment, meetings and how the space fits into their actual routine.

Takeaway for this week: List the three times or situations when your current workspace causes the most friction, then use those as your comparison criteria.

Give yourself room to change

Small businesses rarely stay exactly the same.

You might take on a new client, hire someone, move towards remote work, or discover that you need more client-facing space. That makes flexibility worth considering alongside price and size.

A workspace that works perfectly today may not make sense if your requirements change significantly six months from now.

This doesn’t mean every business should choose the most flexible option available. It means you should understand what you’re committing to and how difficult it would be to change course.

Takeaway for this week: Before signing anything, ask what happens if you need more space, less space or a different arrangement six months from now.

The best workspace is the one that supports the way you work

There isn’t one correct workspace for every small business.

The useful decision comes from working backwards: understand your week, identify what genuinely matters, and then find a workspace that supports those requirements without paying for space or facilities you rarely use.

The mistake is assuming that a bigger office automatically gives a business more value.

Sometimes the better workspace is simply the one that removes the problems you actually have.

**Author Bio:**Bart Wolkowski is the founder of King Work, a boutique flexible workspace in Adelaide CBD. He has first-hand experience helping freelancers, startups and remote teams assess how workspace, access and meeting requirements fit into their working routines.