So a while ago we moved across the country. The reasons are unimportant (you can read about them elsewhere), but this provided me the opportunity to re-imagine my office area in our new home. When we were living in Texas my office area consisted of a rather nice and large corner of our home… but it was in the living room, right next to the front door, the kitchen, the TV, the music, the toys, the on and on and on — got me? It was anything but ideal, but we made it work. (Oh! How I suffered!). It wasn’t that bad. I had lots of tactics for coping (see here for one of them). At any rate, I’ve taken to heart the need to re-imagine my space for the work that I do (mainly writing and research, but I also attend to many personal matters in the space). After having figured out where the desk went, and where to put the light, and the cords, and the printer, scanner, second monitor, pencil sharpener, keyboard/mouse, backup hard drives, etc… I finally felt like I had everything under control. I felt that way for about a week. After the week I realized I was seriously lacking something basic and important: information.
Our bookshelves were upstairs. All of the material I have need to access in-depth or simply refer to briefly was nowhere to be found in my recent vicinity. Something had to be done. Luckily, the previous inhabitants had left an old and worn out bookshelf (very small) in their garage. It was covered by spiders and webs of varying thickness, but I was not to be deterred. After removing the insects I further wiped down the bookshelf and brought it into the basement office. As the shelf was small (not the floor to ceiling kind I’ve become accustomed to), I had to make intelligent selections for the books I wished to have “on hand.” It seems I’ve chosen wisely. Now the material I need is very much nearby, and the work I do is that much easier. Is my office complete? No. It could use a window (among some new equipment). Will it do? Yes. Yes it will.