The Home Office
A few weeks ago, I set up my home office, a small room in the basement where I can focus and get my work done. I’ve set it up with everything I need so that I can be productive and not get distracted by whatever else might be going on at home.
In the span of these last few weeks, it’s already become my ‘haven’, a place where I can tackle my most important projects, where I can do all of the things I’ve got planned. It’s something I’ve wanted even before we moved into this house.
And, given that we moved into the house in 2014, it’s only taken me 5 years to get the room set up.
I’ve been thinking about why it took me so long. For so many years, the room was a collection of boxes, bags and piles of books. I’d glance in every now and then and commit to myself that I’d get started on it soon.
Of course, ‘soon’ kept becoming ‘later’. Whenever the thought would pop into my head, I’d keep thinking about the boxes I’d have to unpack, the odds and ends I’d have to sift through or the furniture set-up that I’d be required to complete. I’d inevitably decide I didn’t have the time, that I needed a completely free weekend, or that I needed to have everything I needed before I got started.
As a result, the size of the task kept growing bigger and bigger - at least in my head. And as it got bigger, it got more ominous, until ultimately I resorted to just keeping the door to the room closed at all times - out of sight, out of mind - until some magical point in time when everything would get done and the home office would be ready to go.
Of course, there was no magic to it in the end.
In the end, I decided not to get worked up about the time it would take, or how many bags, boxes and piles had to be sorted.
In the end, I decided to start with unpacking just one box. I went through just one of the bags on the floor. I sorted through just one pile of books. Nothing more, nothing less. I just did a little bit, then a little bit more, then a little bit more.
Until, one day, a couple of weeks ago, it was all done, and the home office was finally up and running.
Turns out it wasn’t that difficult a task at all. All I had to do was dial down my expectations, deal with just what was directly in front of me and simply get started. One little bit at a time.
Turns out, that apparently that that’s all was ever needed.
