Your Workspace Can Make or Break You: The Power of Context
A great workspace is a genie, it can make your wishes come true.
Every sport needs a special ground, for players to practice and play.
Just like that, all the creators (artists) need a special place to practice and play around their art.
It could be as simple as a table in a corner.
Or as elaborate as chandeliers and sunshine.
Messy. Clean. Gloomy. Inspiring. Cramped. Gigantic. Your workspace needs to spark a feeling. A feeling that pulls your thoughts out of your head and brings them down to your fingers.
Your workspace is where you create. It is where you spend most of your time. What you do every day at your work-desk unifies. Every day spent at creating art and working at your craft â It sums up.
âHow we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.â â Annie Dillard
There is no such thing as an ideal workspace. Stephen King wrote short stories during his lunch hours while working at a laundry.
But, we all have a dream workspace in the back of our head. A workspace in which our fingers and thoughts can flow, like air.
My preferred setting to write is my laptop, some pages, a pen, a clean desk, well-lit room, and silence. I do find these conditions sometimes and it works like magic for me.
Writers, musicians, painters, developers or makers in any profession. Everyone struggles with their workspace, to some extent. If you could identify what bugs you at your work-desk and fix it, it will change the way you work, forever.
Here are some tips that will help you set the tone for your workspace. Ideas that you can plug and play with. And test them yourself. Tweaks that will help you do more, faster and better.
Note: These tips are suitable for your corner-of-creativity at home. Because we donât get much control over the office space, mostly.
1. Whatâs your schedule type?
Managers schedule vs. makers schedule.
There are two types of schedules. Paul Graham named them managers schedule and makers schedule. People on managers schedule can cut their days into hourly intervals. But for those who are on makers schedules, they prefer to divide their time into units of half a day at least.
Creators (makers) need distraction-free long hours. A couple of hours are not enough for them to even get started. Writers, designers, developers etc. work on makers schedules.
If your workspace puts you in a distracting environment. Or there is always someone patting on your shoulder every couple of hours. You need to let them know about your work process. For home, find a place where you can lock yourself up for long hours. If you tell them, they will understand your professional needs. Itâll save you time and energy that youâd have wasted in circling back to your ideas.
2. How do you want to feel at your work desk?
Innovative, focused, playful, energetic, artistic, happy, inspiring, calm, soothingâŚ
Put up a poster or two, that triggers those feeling. Or some decorative props or tools. Or get a musical instrument to play in between. There are no hard and fast rules. A trigger, as small as upbeat music or bright lights is enough to make you feel energetic.
The triggers are not to force you. But itâs your job to cautiously set them as they suit you. You need to honor your taste.
Those feelings reflect in your work. They also lead to physical comfort and reduces distraction. For example, at my work desk, I want to feel organized. And for that, I keep my desk clean (thatâs it). One simple improvement will impact the quality of your work for a long time.
3. Does chaos lead you to creation?
Your productivity is linked as much with the surroundings as it is with the physical comfort, your mood, and deadlines.
There is a minority of blessed people who can work while standing on a leg, under the Niagara fall, with EDM in the background.
I know, you are not one of them. But once in a while, it doesnât hurt to experience chaos.
Chaos leads to order. It doesnât need to reflect in your workspace though. But only in the process. Experiment with the timings and experiment with the locations. Youâll find out that starting your work from different initial conditions would result in completely different processes and creations. It is not for everyone. But some creators thrive in chaos. And others (like me) canât hold a single thought for 10 seconds.
4. Creativity fluctuates and so does your work-zones
Creative process requires working in small rooms, big halls, with groups or alone.
Your creative work/process demands that you work in multiple modes. You need discussions, brainstorming, alone time, feedback and a period of reflection and revision.
It is preferable to have dedicated work-zones for each of those situations. Adobeâs office has dedicated spaces for each of these requirements.
You donât need to dedicate mutually exclusive work-zones, an overlap is fine. Most of the creators already have this habit of getting off their chairs for discussions or brainstorming. It is a good habit. And you may try to add specific locations or contexts to those habits.
5. Whatâs your color pallet?
Colors are important. Very few of us are neutral towards colors. If you have your own reasons behind your choice of colors â extend them to your workspace.
Itâs up to you in which manner you prefer them. I incline towards white: laptop, mobile, headphones, pens, walls. Things that soothe your eyes just blend into the environment. The weird looking, oddly colored objects donât.
Pick your color pallet. Most of us donât have the freedom to modify the environment we work in; it is an office or your rented room. It is tough. But cultivating a corner with your favorite colors slowly wonât kill your bank balance or your time.
Donât go at your desk lightly
Approach your work (craft) with passion, anger, joy, hate, guilt, despair, fear⌠but not lightly. Emotions fuel art. Focus fuels your craft. A mind, when empty on emotions and dull on ideas is never a right time for your creative pursuit.
The Power of Context â
This piece is inspired by the rule of âPower of Contextâ introduced by Malcolm Gladwell in Tipping Point. It states that human behavior is sensitive to its environment.
