Workspace

I posted a picture of a new chair to Twitter yesterday.  Alongside the picture, I said:

Replaced ten year old home office chair with Something Fancy. Butt approves. Daytime standing desk doesn’t care.

(I know, riveting social media, right?)

In addition to the new (incredibly comfy, dangerously reclinable) chair, I removed the small “ladder” desk that Kate uses when she brings her laptop in for nerdly together time (not to worry: I replaced it with something considerably more sturdy), and generally did a lot of housecleaning in the workspace, especially in the closet (which got a new shelf unit that ended up mostly empty, thanks to my “throw it out!” style of clean-up).

As a general rule, I adhere as closely as I can to the “It’s all Too Much” school of thought when it comes to my living spaces. When I’m cleaning up I focus what, exactly, I want a space to be for, and basically just remove everything that doesn’t directly support that purpose. That might sound pretty zen, but I assure you it’s anything but new age feng shui.

For example, I want to use my office to:

• Do non-writing computer-related stuff (typically at my desk).
• Write (often not at my desk).
• Edit/revise (back at my desk again).
• Do computery stuff with my wife and/or daughter.
• Read.

In addition, there are a few other things my office needs to be able to do, primarily:

• Host some stuff that Sean can play with
• Remain resistant to permanent Sean-related damage to the stuff Sean can’t play with

To this end, my home office has:

• A new, still-kind-of-fume-laden, super-comfy chair.
• My monstrous, utterly impractical desk.
• My ‘side desk’ for laptops and hardcopies of stuff.
• Kate’s desk.
• My desktop (let’s be honest: gaming) computer.
• My dayjob laptop.
• My contractor job laptop.
• My daughter’s laptop.
• My netbook (on which I do all my first draft writing, pretty much).
• A comfy wingback (where said writing takes place).
• A big closet with spare computer bits, software, and gaming stuff for both myself and smaller persons.
• A small bookshelf with books I really can’t bear to be a whole floor away from, or which I want to read ‘next’.
• A baby-gate ‘cage’ around said bookshelf.

Clearly, the space serves many masters, and in order to fight what might seem inevitable clutter-creep, I have to be really vicious about my “if it doesn’t apply to the purpose of the space, it goes” rule. It doesn’t make the room spartan, by any means, but if you understand everything room has to do, you might concede that at the very least it’s efficient.

I don’t have a picture of the whole room, but this is current picture of the desk area:

The only object I don’t really need on the desk? That would be the stone ‘lawn ornament’ frog that you can see center left, holding my soda glass, and given what I went through to acquire the damned thing, I’m certainly not getting rid of it.

I didn’t set this picture up: that’s just how I left it this morning when I walked out the door.

And where did I walk out the door to?

That would be my dayjob work space which, in contrast, serves only one purpose.

Aside from its purpose (note the sweet, sweet singular), the only other goal I have with this space is to change things up as much as I can from my home space, in terms of physical requirements: I stand rather than sit and use a different style of keyboard and mouse — all told, I probably spend well over 16 hours on a computer every day of the working week, and doing whatever I can to reduce movement repetition is critical to my continued (relative) health and avoidance of RSI.

What about you guys? I have an unhealthy fascination for seeing pictures of where people do their work and play: got any cool setups link to? Share!