You can cultivate an efficient, non-standard workspace anywhere that will suit your home and lifestyle if you consider the following principles.
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CULTIVATING A CREATIVE WORKSPACE IN YOUR HOME
Dedicate a space. Intentionally devote an area of your home for a specific amount of time to accomplish a desired goal. Maybe it’s your room, the couch, the dining table, or a counter in your kitchen. Wherever you choose, let that space be set apart for the time and purpose of your project and when you are finished or when your time is up, put things away and move on.
Make a plan in advance. Before you begin your task, gather all of the supplies you will need to do the job and bring them to your dedicated space. You will be more efficient with your time if you are not running all over the house to get the things you need in the middle of your work time. If you are paying bills at your kitchen counter grab your checkbook, stamps, pens, and stapler before you begin.
Mind the clutter. When you start to work in a space free of extraneous items, it conveys a sense of possibility—like a blank canvas does for a painter. Nothing is more distracting than trying to focus with a bunch of random stuff scattered on your work surface. Clearing mental clutter is just as crucial to being efficient with your time as working in a tidy space. If your mind is on other things, take a few minutes to jot down anything taking up mental space so you can come back to them later. Anything that is not contributing to achieving your work goal will hold you back and produce anxiety and avoidance.
Do Something
There will always be something to accomplish and you can’t always do projects in an ideal environment, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do something. If the majority of your life does not happen behind closed doors, why should your inspirational space be locked behind one? Why can’t your creative space be the same space you spend the majority of your time? Get things done in a way that fits your life and brings you joy. Perhaps you will find the more you embrace an unconventional workspace, the more joy and creativity might flow.
Get things done in a way that fits your life and brings you joy.
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2 comments
Very beautiful post. I like your outlook on it. When my girls were all young I had my sewing machine squeezed into a tiny space in my laundry room and did all other crafts on the dining room table or living room floor. Now that they’re all grown I have a dedicated studio in my home and I love it! Although right now I have a project on the living room floor and bits of one spread out on my table … I suppose it just works! Thanks for sharing.
Your thoughts resonate completely with my experience. Although there is always that ‘ideal’ space lurking in our imagination, it has never quite fleshed out for me personally. So my creativity has always and quite naturally been integrated into the realities of my life. It seems to me there is a kind of poetic justice in it; as my home, my children, my marriage —the beautiful, messy, challenging, and joyful life all around me —are the inspiration and substance of my creative work (next to my relationship with Jesus, of course). Thank you for your insight and encouragement to use our gifts in the ‘life spaces’ we are given. ~ In His Love, Tabitha