This is the library at the Chautauqua Institute in New York. An institute of music, art, philosophy and religion that has been in place since 1874. I am here this week studying and writing my book The Golden Rule in Business: 28 BE Attitudes for Success.

I'm also attending lectures, recitals, concerts, the ballet, the opera, Once Upon a Mattress and a Shakespeare play, Much Ado About Nothing.

I am in heaven.

I'm also working.

Sitting here on the grass in front of the library, my laptop on my lap, the sounds of a brass band in the distance, I am emailing customers, editing and writing and doing research using WIFI.

Isn't technology grand?

Wouldn't you like to do the same? How about your employees?

You may say - how productive can you be? Very.

At the beginning of the week I wrote out a daily schedule which included the delights I wanted to experience here at the Institute along with the work I needed to complete. Each day I have time set aside for all that needs to be accomplished.

I'm feeling productive and spiritually and creatively fed at the same time.

ROWE or Results-Only Work Environment is based on the idea that people can be more productive if given the opportunity to work when they want and where they want with a specific list of tasks they are expected to complete.

Best Buy's communications and properties division started this as an experiment four years ago and now 80% of their corporate employees take part in the program that allows people to work the hours they want, wherever they want so long as they meet their goals.

Do you offer flex-time for your employees? Work from home programs? As more and more of our work moves to the Internet, businesses are finding that the need for large offices and the corresponding overhead are unnecessary. Weekly meetings that bring the group together for project updates are productive and focused and allow the rest of the week to be spent actually working as opposed to "looking like you are working" while gossiping around the water cooler about the latest 24 episode.

How could you use ROWE in your business/department?

Deborah Chaddock Brown
Writer