I went through a period where I convinced myself the reason I wasn’t writing more was because I didn’t have the right set-up. That wasn’t of course the case. The reason I wasn’t writing was that I was thinking about the perfect spaces / time / circumstances rather than writing. So I’d move things around only to find I was in a different space but still not writing.
Thinking about and enjoying all these posts this morning, envying the beautiful screens and such, I thought I’d post my ridiculous workspaces to remind me that I don’t need to redecorate.
The “digital” space:
2013 iMac, Blue Snowball microphone, wireless keyboard and touch pad. The stand is mostly useless except as a place to put my computer glasses. There are spurts when I write here but it’s mostly where I grade, make screencast lectures, and retreat when the rest of the apartment is too hot as this guest room / study is the coolest room in the place.
The analog space:
My thinking in creating this was that I would write more if I got away from my digital things. This was not the case and so the desk mostly either collects stuff or get used for weekly review, and bullet journaling.
Where I mostly do research and writing:
Kitchen table on my MacBook with piles of books and papers. I love it in here – there’s windows on two sides, a lot of space AND I have to put everything away at the end of each work session which gives me a sense of boundaries between research / writing, and everything else.
Add to these an assortment of cafes, with and without wifi, and some libraries and archives and you have pretty much everywhere I work. I do have an office / desk / iMac at my university, but it’s so busy there and I get interrupted so often that I mostly use it as a place to meet students, try and do work between meetings, and hold some of the ridiculous number of books I’ve accumulated.
. Would love to share my own but it’s a horrendous mess of things right now. I have to prevent things from falling onto my keyboard and pressing stray keys