Creative: Working In

For the past three years I’ve worked out of my living room. Bright. Breezy, double doors out to the patio, etc. It’s been great. But it doesn’t feel like an office. It feels more open minded. So I made a change. I just moved back into my other, other home office. Yes, I’m undergoing job “changes,” not breaks just “changes,” so I’m also beginning to wear multiple hats, including the photography hat once again. (Believe it or not.) I wanted to create an office space that was about ONE thing. Work. No distractions. Nothing that doesn’t fit in the wheelhouse of “get it done.” So I moved back into the office I used from about 2002 to 2013. It’s in my house people, so not like a lot a long way to go. And I mostly work from a laptop, so the entire move took about five minutes but the IMPACT has been significant.

I’m now working in four-hour blocks. 8-12, 12-1 lunch, then back for 1-5. Boom. I do this 2.5 days a week then release myself into my other life for the rest of the week. As you can see, my “new” office has sections. Computer, art, publications. They drift over each other and nothing is completely organized but those are the general themes. I’m back to using my 30-inch monitor, which could be the single most important piece of equipment I’ve ever purchased. It’s dreamy.

The room is darker, quieter and lends itself to long periods of intense focus. That’s the point. I can get major sh$# done in four hours. If I’m focused. Now focus has never been an issue for me. Lack of talent? Sure, that’s fair game, but I’ve always been focused. This current setup has intensified this feel. I make an art piece everyday. I do all my Blurb stuff in intense, four-hour runs, but then when the clock strikes five…I’m gone. It’s SO easy to keep working, to look up and see 9PM or 10PM staring back at you, but I don’t find this productive. WAY too easy to get online and lose yourself, or just screw around.

When I enter this room it’s like entering a creative MMA cage. And when it’s over I do other stuff which is equally important in keeping the balance in life. Bike, hike, fish, shoot, write, read, eat, yoga, call mom, continue digging bomb shelter in the Mojave, etc. etc. I’ve even been trying to limit email, text and anything else work related to this room. Not easy but worth trying. Speaking of that, texting is reaching epidemic levels. I’m going on a text diet as of right now. Texting is the bath salts of technology. You send too many and you might truly lose it, or be eaten by someone else. Nothing I’ve written here is revolutionary. Not by a long shot. I’m sharing because it’s my site and you can’t stop me.