If you have already been to a couple of coliving spaces – you probably know what we’re talking about – there is always this one coliver that everyone loves and wants to be around. They genuinely get along with the team and the residents and it feels like the place and experience wouldn’t be the same without them.

Some would say that it’s a question of personality. But let’s be honest, we all have at least one friend with an amazing personality and that we love very much but we wouldn’t want to live with them in a million years. Then, maybe it takes something else than being a nice person to be a great coliver!

We, the team of Château coliving, have gathered in one place some insights and tips based on our own experiences both as a coliving team and as regular guests in other spaces. To complete our mini research, we have also asked these questions to our community and other coliving professionals. Hopefully we now have all the main pointers and DOs and DONTs in Coliving to help enhance your future experiences!

Let’s dive in!

Of course starting with the basics: respecting personal space, noise levels, and the communal areas. It’s equally important to respect the property and treating it as you would treat your own house. We would also add: 

• Being mindful of shared resources and the diverse backgrounds of fellow colivers, especially when it comes to cultural differences and languages.  A quick reminder that English is not everyone’s first language. It’s important not to judge others on their level of English and not to immediately take offense if something they said sounds odd. Pro tip – check in what was the intention, not the actual wording!

• Respect is very often a question of how we communicate – in colivings people tend to be easy going and open minded, so keep open and honest communication about your needs and boundaries.

• Talking about being considerate to others applies to a huge extent to being respectful and considerate to the team. It might look like their job is just to hang out with you, but trust us, there is a lot more going on behind the scenes.

• And you have no idea about it! Let’s not the forget that maintaining boundaries and personal space for them is extremely challenging, because well… they live with their clients 24/7. Can you try to imagine living with your clients (even your favorite one) for 1 or 2 months non stop? Exactly!

• Respecting the team’s work and time means being mindful of their days off. This can look like restraining yourself from over messaging or messaging late unless there’s an emergency, and our personal favorite: not asking the same question to more than 1 team member. Chances are you will get the same answer, and they will only get annoyed with you for wasting their time or disregarding the first answer you got. Generally, at least in our case, 97% of the answers of any possible questions one might have can be found written down either on slack, our FAQ section, email exchanges, or notion page. Please respect the time someone took to write them down and read before you ask.
  
  We know it seems that a few quick questions is not a problem, but if 25 colivers ask the same 2 questions in separate messages daily, that really adds up!
  

• Lastly, stay away from gossip and keep calm and constructive should any conflict arises. 

Aren’t we all looking for that Community Spirit? Willingness to engage with others, participate in group activities, and contribute to the community’s overall well-being is a must if you have chosen to spend your time in a destination coliving.

Don’t be shy and organize that day trip or karaoke night. You will see that everyone will have a great time, thanks to you!

Big disclaimer here: We understand that full time travelling and constantly changing places and meeting new people can result in social fatigue and need to spend some time alone to ground yourself. Being in a coliving doesn’t mean that you always have to say yes to activities and be a social butterfly. Again, communicate your needs and boundaries with kindness.

Need a week or two of quiet time to regroup? Sure, we get it! Don’t hesitate to mention that during family meeting to make sure that not only others will respect it, but also that they will not feel like you’re avoiding them or worry that you’re not having a good time.

Long live the Supportive Attitude!

• Reading the room and offering help and support to others, whether it’s through sharing skills, solicited advice, or just being a good listener will always be appreciated.

• Noticed that someone is having a hectic work week? Offer to prepare lunch for them. Someone is in a bad mood – pay them a compliment (or ask if they need help with anything). 

Most importantly – don’t be afraid to ask for help and support yourself when you need it – this will also open the doors for others to do so.

That’s one of the greatest benefits of coliving!

Being adaptable to different schedules, routines, and ways of working is crucial in coliving and we notice that the more people have travelled the more adaptable they usually are.

• Someone took the standing desk that you had your eye on? Well, maybe stack some books or a cardboard box to replicate the effect. It’s not ideal, but then again what is?

• Understanding that living with others requires compromise and a degree of flexibility is crucial in coliving, but of course we need to draw the line of what is acceptable and what is not. If the kitchen knives are not as sharp as you’d like them to be, maybe that’s not the end of the world, but if the living room is always dirty or messy – then you should definitely raise your concerns.

We love it when colivers are approaching challenges and conflicts with a solution-oriented mindset. Professional community managers are often in a position where they have to solve a ton of problems a day (and if you don’t see that, it doesn’t mean they don’t do it, it just means they are doing it really well!). So when you shoot at them with the next problem or complaint, try to think about what you would do in their place to solve it and help them by proposing the solution directly.

This will also help you filter what is solvable and what is not. 

Everyone respects reliable people. Taking responsibility for personal actions and commitments, includes:

• taking ownership and apologizing if you happen to do something wrong,

• being punctual for shared activities and respecting community rules. If something is being organised and people are late, then chances are that next time even more people will be late and that’s frustrating for everyone. If you’re running late for an activity – shoot a message and give them the option not to wait for you.

• This shows that you respect people time and don’t want to put them in a difficult position of whether to disappoint you by not waiting for you or annoy everyone else, who was on time and had to wait.

• If the activity required any fees and you had to cancel – offer to pay for it anyway.

Assuming that it’s okay to make everyone wait or cancel last minute (when probably transport is being planned and arranged in advance) discourages people from organising something next time. It happens to everyone to have a last minute emergency, just own it and be nice about it. 

Keeping personal and communal spaces clean and tidy is one of the most basic rules, still it often gets overlooked.

• “I’m just going to leave all my work stuff here because I will need this space again in the morning”

• “This pan had to soak that’s why its in the sink (2 days later)” are just some of the things that can escalate to conflicts or in the best case resentment by the other colivers and the team.

Taking responsibility also means speaking up when something is wrong. In a shared living situation it is everyone’s responsibility to make sure the rules are being followed. Remember that team members are (almost) never directly responsible if colivers get messy or annoying, yet they are usually the ones who have to call people out. 

Next time you see someone neglecting the rules, tell them – respectfully and with kindness, but do call them out:

• “Hey I noticed that you were in a hurry for a meeting, so I washed and put away your mug for you in order not to create discomfort for the other colivers. Next time if you’re in a similar situation, don’t hesitate to ask for help whoever is around, I’m sure people wouldn’t mind to help and you’d do the same for them”
  

Same goes if you have any issues with your room or facilities. Nobody would know if your shower drain is clogged or if your door handle is lose – ask the person in charge nicely – that’s the only way to get it fixed.

Maintaining a positive and upbeat attitude, can be contagious and uplift the community’s spirit. Instead of being bummed out that your beach plan got ruined because it’s raining, propose a fun board game or recreate the beach time by playing volleyball in the rain in your swimwear. The goal is to have fun and make the best out of your time together! You will have another beach day.

And that said, of course keeping an open-mind is crucial for excelling at community life. Embracing diversity, being open to new ideas, cultures, and experiences and and always trying to understand where others are coming from, without judgement is a priceless quality.

Maintaining a professional approach to remote work, includes setting boundaries to ensure work doesn’t disrupt communal living.

• Have a call at 3am? Make sure to take it in a place where you won’t wake anyone up.

• Often people work different time zones and it’s hard to make activities work out for everyone. If you ask the team to make an exception for you about something, consider that if they do it for you, they should be able to do it for the rest of the colivers too. So checkin with yourself – is this little favor doable for 20+ other people? If not maybe it’s not reasonable to ask for it.

Leveraging the opportunity to network and collaborate with other remote workers and digital nomads, while being respectful of their work routines is also something to consider.

• If someone is starting work at 7am, maybe it’s not the best that you keep chatting on work related topics well after midnight (unless the person really wants to).

• Same often applies to team members. They might have decided to stay for a game night, maybe it’s not ideal that you bring up your bill or need of fresh towels in the middle of the game.

Being understanding towards others’ experiences and challenges is something everyone needs and values. This is also the foundation of a supportive and caring community.

• Someone might have had a bad day, let’s not judge, jump to conclusions or take things personally.

• Sometimes conflicts arise. Needless to say that the favorite coliver is rarely the person sparking the conflict. On the contrary – if you want to be liked and respected by your fellow colivers, try to be the one that calms things down (or leave tactfully if it doesn’t concern you).

• Always use empathy to navigate and resolve conflicts, assume good intentions and help ensure that all voices are heard and respected.

Understanding is another golden quality during the times when there’s an issue or challenge on the property. In the rare cases when there might be a power cut or a technology malfunction, being patient and understanding that it is nobody’s fault and the team is doing their best to resolve it is highly appreciated. If you want to go a step further you can also

• try to help or calm others about it,

• turn things into a joke,

or generally not make a huge deal out of it – always better than feeding into everyone’s stress on the moment.

One of the reasons why we travel is because we want to enrich ourselves, experience new places and culture and learn. People usually love to teach and share their experiences and showing interest in learning from others and sharing your own knowledge is always very much appreciated when coliving with others. This enriches the communal experience and fosters a culture of growth.

• Displaying cultural curiosity by being interested in the local life and culture as well as the diverse backgrounds of fellow colivers, definitely enhances the overall experience for everyone.

• Have a coliver from an exotic country that you don’t know much about? Show them that you’re interested to know more! If you see that they enjoy sharing about it, why not ask them to do a little presentation for skillshare night.

• Another way that we find always works very well is through cooking together and sharing recipes!

But we guarantee, if you follow these basic guidelines in any coliving or social setting, you will be a preferred, respected and always wanted guest by both fellow colivers and team members.

Who doesn’t want to live in an ideal coliving environment? Imagine if everyone you ever met on your journey was 100% respecting what we have shared above – wouldn’t that be the dream?

If you want to help make it happen, let’s spread the word! Share this with people from the coliving community and let’s build our own ideal world together!