Playing with time and space

[vaneramos]

The window above my desk overlooking Highway 7 (York Road)

~~~~~~~~~~

Tectonic plates are shifting, giving rise to new landscapes. The furniture groans along fault lines. My personal planet moves toward a new geographical reality.

Time is shifting, too. New portals open. I guide my craft through untracked space, trusting my gravitational instincts.

The month of January has been all about changing my work habits. One of the essential exercises for a creative person is to play with time. Keith, the social worker, told me last week to pay attention to my own energy during the course of a day. I have read similar advice in Creating a Life Worth Living, a book about "career design for artists" by Carol Lloyd. It devotes an entire chapter to charting one's circadian rhythms.

I have known for years that my most productive mental time is between 3 and 10 pm. But it's also important to engage in some kind of creative activity early in the day, to set the pace and get focused. I've tried all kinds of arrangements. But what the matter came down to, this week, was realizing that my physical peak comes much earlier in the day, and I ought to dedicate that energy to physical endeavours rather than artistic ones. Finally, I came up with a new scheme. After rising, eating breakfast and writing my morning pages, late morning will be devoted to one of several things: housework, going to the gym, or walking.

The biggest obstacle has been my computer. Habitually I make myself coffee, sit down at the keyboard and get sucked into a vortex of email, aimless surfing and computer games. It's a bad place to sit when my brain isn't functioning. Before I know it, lunchtime will be past and I won't have accomplished anything. After that it's easy for the entire day to evaporate into an aimless vapour.

I had to make a new rule: the computer does not get turned on until noon. By then I will have completed my physical assignment for the day, and it will be alright to sit down with my lunch and start to read email. I started experimenting with this yesterday morning. At 10:30 I set out to reorganize my office.

Well!

The timing was right. Over the past two days I have spent five hours removing boxes and clutter, reorganizing all the drawers, shifting and vacuuming under furniture, even contemplating redesigning the space. In the end the desk, tables and bureau all went back to their old places, but I have eliminated the jumble that filled all the drawers. Paper, fabric, pens, paints, glue, tools and personal effects are all neatly organized. Practically everything that's unrelated to writing or art is gone. The room is still busy and fertile, but everything has its place.

The problem now is I have boxes of papers, magazines and junk sitting in the living room. I am determined not to move any of it back into the office. This is a dedicated work area, not a storage closet! Sometimes between now and tomorrow afternoon I have to deal with the mess out there, because I'll be picking Brenna up after school for a long weekend. But I am master of my own universe, or at least my own planet, and I won't let a little mountain get in my way. Some of it will go down to the basement, some of it will get thrown out and the rest, well, I'll come up with a solution.

The other exciting thing is, this cleaning gives me a great sense of accomplishment, of moving forward. By the time I finally sit down at the computer, I feel like I've earned it. I have taken some honest steps toward putting my world in order and can safely devote the rest of the afternoon to creative endeavours. In the coming weeks I'll see whether I can make this new routine continue to work for me.




My office this afternoon.

Comments

[rfmcdpei.livejournal.com]

Very nice office, Van. I'm envious.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Along with the cheap rent, this room is the one feature that endears me to living here. The windows face SSE and ESE, so it's flooded with bright sunlight all morning, precisely what I need.

[laura-borealis.livejournal.com]

It looks so cozy and comfy. :)
I love all the greens.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I chose and painted the wall colour. I wanted the room to be calming and meditative. I'm delighted with it.

[ciddyguy.livejournal.com]

I wish I had a seperate space for my computer and what not, but nope, it's sharing the bedroom as I don't have anywhere else to put it. :-(

And it's a mess, but I'm also going through all my files, tossing, shredding and filing. Got a lot more to do but progress is being made non the less and I totally agree that you feel that wonderful sense of accomplishment when done.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

This used to be my bedroom, but I changed it exclusively into and office to bribe myself to write more. The other bedroom used to be for my kids, but they're not here often enough, so I use it most of the time and move to the living room futon when they're visiting. Good luck with your sorting and organizing. It can be refreshing to throw out stuff that has lost its value.

[willowing.livejournal.com]

the view from your office gives me a nostalgic feeling somehow, but inside, it seems nice and cosy and full with plants! :)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

It's a strange view from the window: it overlooks one of the city's busiest streets, a highway actually. The building where I live is surrounded by small factories and parking lots. There isn't a tree within a stone's throw. Kind of bleak and sad.

But I just have to cross the street, walk one block, and there is the woods, the river, and trails running for miles (and miles) into the countryside. I haven't been documenting that beauty as much here as I've done in the past, but I'm deeply grateful for it.

congratulations!

[djjo.livejournal.com]

Wow - your office looks amazing! You've done great work.

Gives me confidence I'll be able to do the same with my room. If we are gonna get that bed into here, I gotta clear the clutter out first!

Hugs and good luck with the living room tomorrow. Hugs to Brenna.

and smooches to you Van!

Re: congratulations!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

A dramatic improvement, isn't it? I returned home from choir practice just now, walked into the room and it practically took my breath away.

I've solved most of the problem with the boxes in the living room, at least temporarily. There's still some clutter there to tidy in the morning.

I hope the work on your room goes just as well. Talk to you soon.

xoxo

Envy

[(Anonymous)]

Van, I envy you. I've been trying to sort through my piles of paper and garbage since before the new year. 15 minutes a day. It piles up just as fast.

I'm about to lose the privacy of my office as a bed gets moved in here so the baby can have his own room. Time to buy a house.

But even at it's best, my little hobbit hole looked nothing like this. It looks wonderful. How do you keep plants alive? I love that green arm chair.

G

P.S. Your monitor is too small.

Re: Envy

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I was trying to pace myself and just do a little each day, but once I got going yesterday I got carried away. The challenge will be pacing myself to keep on top of the messes as they crop up.

Actually I'm very bad with houseplants. It's sad really, because I love plants, but I tend to neglect them. I'm a better gardener, but in the absence of a garden houseplants have to suffice. I've learned only to buy plants that require minimum care.

Re: Envy

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

P.S. Yeah, you're right about the monitor.

[mattycub.livejournal.com]

Hey, the office looks great!

I find cleaning and organizing very relaxing. I know I'm one of the few, but something about putting everything in it's right place gets me into a very zen like mood. And I work much better in an organized area. When a space is cluttered and messy, I'm constantly distracted by what needs to be done.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

For most of my life I hated doing housework. Three years ago I was living in total squalour. But it made me unhappy because I felt too ashamed to invite any of my friends over. I started cleaning not because I liked it, but because I wanted to look after myself and have a better life. It worked: I got my place looking half decent, and my friend Ray still talks about the dinner party I threw for my 40th birthday. Only recently, I have actually started to experience positive emotional feedback from washing the dishes or vacuuming. This makes me happy.

I'll never be a neat freak. I'm too much of a packrat. Besides, I need to make a mess in order to create a piece of art. This is one of my personal dilemmas: the visual artist part of me likes fertile clutter (paper! fabric! glue! paint!)but the writer needs space (surfaces! surfaces!). My motivation for this latest cleaning binge was to get the space organized enough so I can easily squirrel away the art mess when it's time to write. I believe that having the freedom to shift gears will be fruitful for me.

[detailbear.livejournal.com]

Very nice, Van. I'm encouraged that it can be done. I very much have a "before" picture in my house right now. In fact, I might take a picture tonight and try to get to the "after" later this weekend.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Glad I can provide some inspiration. I suppose it will be a difficult job, beyond the simple physical challenge. Good luck and best wishes.

office space

[rondacker.livejournal.com]

You give a desperate man inspiration
Wish I could do the same to my sorry spot I call my office space. The books and art supplies are all there, if I could only get past the piles of boxes, papers, summer clothing and other junk indiscriminately shoved in the room as ~ like yours may have been ~ storage space.
Now if I could only get working on cleaning up MY room as capably as you have done to yours.

Re: office space

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm always glad to offer encouragement. I still have a few orphan boxes floating around, but I've gotten to the point where I'll be able to tackle them one at a time with some hope of getting through them fairly soon. Some stuff needs to be filed and some thrown out. Good luck with your office.