Cleaning my desk

It’s a piece of advice that’s old­er than the hills, and yet still so easy to ignore. At least for me, it is.

I’ve been pay­ing atten­tion to how my envi­ron­ment affects my men­tal state and my atti­tude. My apart­men­t’s appear­ance has become crit­i­cal since I’ve start­ed spend­ing a much greater por­tion of my wak­ing hours here. Bit by bit, I’ve been try­ing to orga­nize and clean.

A friend offered me a tech­nique that’s helped: pick an area, and only clean that area. The rest of the place can wait for anoth­er day, or you can pick anoth­er area as soon as you get done with the one you’re focus­ing on. Then the progress becomes apparant.

In any case, I’ve noticed a sub­tle but sig­nif­i­cant shift in my atti­tude when I’m faced with a clut­tered area. I’m more com­fort­able and relaxed, and bet­ter able to focus on tasks – and bet­ter able to keep tasks from intrud­ing on my time when I’m not billing.

Per­haps my desk should have been my first tar­get, but for what­ev­er rea­son it was too daunt­ing. It has now got­ten the treat­ment, and so lets see how my abil­i­ty to con­cen­trate may change.

Don’t con­grat­u­late me too soon, though:

The rest of the place remains quite the shambles.

One thing at a time.