Pondering

[swestrup]

I'm currently just sitting in my newly clean office, relaxing. This office hasn't been either a very productive or a very relaxing place for some time. I need a clean and tidy office in which to think and do real work and, when I actually have a contract or telecommuting job, I keep the place tidy and I find I can be very productive here. In the interim I tend to let half-finished projects pile up with the result that the place became somewhere where I didn't want to work and where it was hard to finish any of the projects taking up space because there was no space to work.

The main reason the office got cleaned up was that I desperately needed to find my misplaced passport that I (mistakenly) thought would most likely be in here. The second reason, in the back of my mind, was that I may very well end up returning before the actual end of my contract and end up doing telecommuting work from here. In that case, it would be most efficient for me to return to an already clean and ready-to-go office so that there would be a minimal break in my work flow.

Whatever the reason, I find it startling how much more calm I feel when I'm in here now. Not having huge half-finished projects staring at me surely has something to do with that. In any case I am going to just sit here and enjoy it a bit. My life has been far too full of clutter, stress and anxiety lately and I'll gladly take a break from that.

I do have one or two things that I need to get done today, but they are fairly minor amounts of work, and should not take me long. So, for right now, I'm just gonna sit back and relax. I need it.

Comments

[hendrikboom.livejournal.com]

That should be an inspiration to be, but I find I have to ask,

What happened to the huge half-finished projects?

[swestrup]

Several things:

I had already started doing triage on my computer equipment and electronics. That which was clearly not needed for any planned project got given away or put in a recycling pile in the basement.

Large stuff that was still working and had a planned use got labeled and put away in my office closet, which now has stuff stacked up in it completely.

Small electronic parts, cables, etc, got sorted by broad categories (phone stuff, A/V cables, internal computer cables, networking stuff, etc) and put into old, plastic, salad boxes I've been collecting. The boxes got labeled and placed on a book shelf.

For the stacks of papers and reference books, I put the references back on the shelves they came off of, and did a quick pass through the papers. Stuff that was no longer relevant, or was meaningless gibberish, or was just junk that had been hastily put in a pile at some point, all got thrown out or put in recycling.

The remaining papers got sorted into two piles. The largest is my 'inbox' containing notes from all my personal projects. That stack is about 18 inches (45 cm) tall and is sitting in a place that was long-since set up for just that purpose. The much smaller pile consists of papers and projects that I am doing for other people and which I may get to before the week is out.

Finally, there a few piles of things which aren't mine and need to be given back to their owners. A few of your books, some of azrhey's stuff, and some CDs that joenotcharles loaned me. They don't take up much room though.

Stuff that I didn't do consists of going through old files in my 4 filing draws and throwing out the irrelevant stuff and digitizing the rest. There's also a fair bit of paper in my inbox which consists of stuff that I plan to scan and then throw out the original of. Some of it may already have been scanned, but I've been taking no chances.

[cpirate.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I'm so with you. Every now and then, I wonder why I'm feeling vaguely disgruntled with work, then I'll clean my desk or my (adjacent) kitchen table or do some lingering dishes, and just feel so vastly happier and more productive.