Improving My Workspace

I’ve been taking baby steps to improve my workspace. It started a few months ago when I decided to stop storing my sewing machine on the corner of my desk.  It’s not like I can even sew here if I want to. Sewing is a dining table activity.

After making the bold move to allow myself to use my entire desk for my workspace (I know, right!) my bad habit of making piles started to take over. I’m still working on getting the tickler file situation situated (because that is where these piles should go to hang out) but in the meantime, I’ve gone from five piles to one (and not because I made it taller).  I feel that is a substantial improvement.

It feels very luxurious to me to spend time or effort taking care of my workspace. When I was working, I never felt like it was a legitimate use of my time to tidy up my office, which is sad because I certainly can tell that I am more focused and productive when my surroundings are in order.

I have great admiration for those minimalist-workspace people. Nothing is left sitting around on their desk, everything is in the drawer in clearly labeled files. For me, out-of-sight means out-of-mind; if I put paperwork for things that are in-process away, I can completely forget that they exist!  Suddenly I don’t have anything to worry about working on and I can just head out to the beach.  I am working on building a more tidy workflow process one baby step at a time.

This past week I decided to splurge on a little acrylic drawer-thingy to wrangle my paperclips and post-it notes and such.  It also created a great spot for my fancy, flamingo glitter globe to come to work with me. So far having her near has been a great help, a little bit of swirling glitter sure can produce a lot of inspiration.

Now the flamingo gets to hang out with the solar-powered lucky cats, my magic rocks and other lucky charms (a rock from my nephews, a shell from Mr. Man, head’s up pennies from my walks), and the positive vibes scented candle that my sister sent me for my birthday (note the cat-safe candle container).

On the other side of the desk, resting on the ledge is my “emergence tiara” – another gift from my nephews (I have a suspicion that their mom might have been more involved with creating this treasure than they are giving her credit for).

As you can see, my workspace is bright and tidy and pleasant.  Anabel thinks so too.  She thinks that it should be her workspace now.  It might have something to do with the cushion that I’m trying out on my chair.  At any rate, Anabel has now decided that this is her favorite daytime sleeping spot.  Apparently, I have made my workplace too pleasant.

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