I mistakenly thought that once I quit my 40+ hour a week job to focus on being a writer that I’d jump right in and get to reorganizing my life, beginning with my office. Writers write in their offices–right? Day after day went by and nothing. Honestly, I didn’t step foot in it unless I needed a place to plop down one more miscellaneous item. Piles mounded and clutter grew, which only made my confidence in my career decision dwindle and the state of the space that much worse. Even though I could see this chaos in other areas of my life, it really showed up in regards to this room. It is, after all, my place of work–whether I’m making money from that work or not. I was experiencing mental and emotional clutter around this life change, and those two things were keeping me from cleaning out my office.
Mental Clutter
A mind overflowing with thoughts, questions, concerns and “what if’s” is experiencing mental clutter. If you’ve seen the movie Inside Out 2, you may be able to imagine what this looks like. At one point, Anxiety is moving frantically, making last minute and rash decisions desperately trying to guarantee a perfect future for her person (Riley). Her movements become like a whirlwind, and she is literally unable to stop her wild motions (which represent incessant thoughts and then pivots). Anxiety is paralyzed amidst the chaos and a scared smile is stuck on her face. This scene perfectly illustrates an extremely agitated mind.
For months, I contemplated quitting my online teaching job. I wavered, ruminated, and toiled over the decision. But once I made it, I was over-taken by newly developed anxiety ridden thoughts. My mental state was not perfectly improved with finally making a choice. Fresh worries and fears circulated in and out of my mind preventing me from beginning my stint as the next Quentin Tarantino. It was awful. I understood all too well how Anxiety felt.
Emotional Clutter
Emotional clutter sneaks up on us. It’s harder to call out because we are assigning feelings to physical items and don’t realize it. If we’re unaware of the emotions we’re holding, then we’re also unable to deal with organizing or discarding our stuff. Laurie Palau talks about emotional clutter on her podcast, This Organized Life. The way Palau, organizing expert, explains it is that the disorganization and chaos in my office space was due to my feelings of anxiety, fear, and grief:
- Anxiety: Essentially, I drew a line in the sand for my myself. I was saying: “Do it now! Be a writer! If you don’t, you never will!” Because I can see many negative scenarios playing out in my head (like Anxiety can in Inside Out 2), I’m always preparing a plan B. Preparing a plan B means I am anticipating failure and keeping myself in the spin cycle1.
- Fear: A spirit of lack has plagued me for most of my life–as a child living just above the poverty line, as a 19 year old bride, as a college student with a baby, and for all the years of living on one income to save on childcare. With the money I made from my full-time situation, I was able to go on trips, enjoy overnight stays at fancy spas, pay for my own healthcare, and walk into a store and buy something just because I wanted it. I was afraid of what life would be like without that financial freedom.
- Grief: I was grieving the loss of a job that made me feel like a contributing member of society. The truth is that I struggle with being who I want to be (a writer, an artist, a creative) and with my need to be seen as a reliable adult worthy of being given a daily wage for something I actually know how to do.
A new purpose
The first step to working through a problem is to identify that you have one. We’ve all heard that statement more than once. So, once I acknowledged the mental and emotional clutter that was blocking me from moving forward with creating a serene writer’s space for myself, I could work on what to do next. Because I had a new purpose and reason for getting up in the morning, my office needed the same. I took this leap of faith at 50 years old to become a person who writes. But before I could use my space for my creative writing endeavors, I needed to reevaluate it as a whole.
You might be wondering why this was necessary. As long as I have a desk and a chair, isn’t that enough? The answer is yes, but no. This room was still serving as a place of work, but executed in a different way. Most importantly, because I no longer had to be in there, I needed to want to be. Therefore, it must be both functional and inviting.
Functionality summation
After assessing my space, I identified the the three activities that would happen in my office: writing, reading, and exercise. Doing this helped me to define the functions of the room and also to designate areas for each undertaking.
Writing
The natural light dictated the spot where my desk had to be when I was teaching. If it was anywhere else, my skin appeared orange on camera–not a good look. Because I no longer needed to go live from my desk to teach high school English, that piece of furniture could now be anywhere in the room. So, because I could, I moved my desk to cozy corner–creating a peaceful writer’s nook.
Reading
To allow for a regular reader’s retreat, I angled my oversized, amply-cushioned wicker chair against the wall and placed a little round end table next to it (ideal for a cup of tea or for resting a novel). Then, I tossed my rollie chair; I never used it anyway. Instead, I planned to just slide my comfy chair over to my desk when I needed to sit upright.
Exercise
Half of my office needed to be for exercise and yoga. Because I still live with three men, I also use my office for exercise privacy. The last thing I want is for them to see me huffing and puffing to my Denise Austin videos or to see me sporting yoga pants that are unflattering to my bum.
Establishing ample space for me to move meant getting rid of anything blocking the open space, such as a cart full of art supplies, boxes full of papers to shred, and especially the set of bongos gathering dust. Clearing out unused and unnecessary items is part of the clean sweep process. I’ll write more about that in a another post coming soon, but the tenets came from a reality TV show from 2003 called Clean Sweep.
Reorganize and redecorate to find peace
The longer it took me to repurpose my office, the more unsure of myself I became. “Researchers have found that being around disorganization makes it harder for your brain to focus,” 2 which to me means that you’re in danger of leaving tasks perpetually unfinished and dreams unrealized. I knew that I couldn’t allow that to happen to my biggest aspiration for this lifetime. Before I could move forward with the actual reorganization and redecorating process and get out of a befuddled, unpeaceful state, I first had to acknowledge and sit with my feelings of mental and emotional clutter. Then I was able to look carefully at my work environment and revaluate my needs since my daily labor situation had changed. It was worth it. I know this because I’m writing this post from a newly organized and redecorated space that cries out to be used and enjoyed everyday.
