Monday, August 24, 2009

Does organization equal motivation?

Any of the Slushbusters can tell you that I'm an organized person. I like order. I like creating it. I like working in it. I do not like maintaining it.

Unfortunately, in order for me to write consistently and well, I need to have a level of order in my home office. And I've let that go, resulting in procrastination with my writing. Sarah posted the other day about distractions. Right now, my office is full of them. I use that space primarily for writing, but also for keeping my knitting supplies. Which have slowly taken over. Inspired by Tess Hilmo's post on public humiliation, I am going to re-organize my office, which I hope will re-energize my writing.This is what my office looks like this morning. I just cleaned the fish tank. The big wooden thing on the desk is a yarn swift, used for holding skeins while winding balls of yarn on the ball winder, which is attached to the desk to the right of the computer. The brown bag on the floor is full of wool for a sweater. I've already wound two balls of it, which are sitting on the floor. None of that stuff used to be in my writing space. It was confined to the closet, or at least to the baskets in the bottom of the bookcase.

This is what my office used to look like:This environment made me focus on writing. Look how happy I am in my uncluttered space. The goal is to get the office looking that way again, refocus, and get down to writing!

5 comments:

Sarah said...

Good luck! If anyone can do it, you can.

I'm in the middle of organizing the main closet in my little apartment. I'm up to my ears in old class note, Christmas decorations, and knitting projects.

This is so why I write at Barnes and Noble...

Amy DeTrempe said...

I completely agree with an organized work space. Mine is a mess at the moment and I meant to tackle it this weekend. Instead I took my laptop outside into the beautiful weather. Since cooler weather will be here in the not too distant future, I guess I better get my inside area taken care of.

Tess said...

Hahahahahahahaha!!!! This post made me all sorts of happy. As you know, I totally relate! It's been almost a week (I think) and my office is already starting to fall apart. I think your post will cause me to clean it up - nip it in the bud, as they say.

Plus, I love seeing your workspace. That's just fun :)

Michelle said...

Tess,

You know how people have diet buddies and workout buddies? Maybe we need to be office clutter buddies!

Lisa said...

Since I don't actually have an office in our tiny apartment (actually, I don't even have a desk of my own), I have decided to convince myself that I don't really need order to write. As long as my laptop is organized, I can write.

So far it's working. Though, strangely, I find that if I clean the kitchen, it doesn't matter how messy the desk is.