It’s Time to Rearrange Things
If you haven’t worked from home before covid, chances are good that you will now, and you may be tired of looking at the interior of your living space. I have been working from home for about five years, and as someone who gets bored very quickly, I am very good at dealing with outdated interiors. It may seem overly obvious, but the easiest way to breathe new life into your home is to move your belongings without a plan or agenda.
Even if you are sure that everything is already in its most functional place, try moving it. Even if you’re sure the chair will only work in that corner, try moving it. Even if this table has always lived there, try moving it. Even if the things you move don’t end up in their new home, chances are that along the way you will find things you thought you lost, or things you need to throw away, or get inspired to move even more things. to new places.
I recently did this with some speaker wires that I’m tired of looking at. My ex-husband hooked up my audio system when I first moved into this apartment, which was very nice of him, but the way he did it left me with a lot of very visible wires creeping into my space. My path to solving this problem finally started with the random thought, “I wonder if this one wire could connect anywhere else?” – and before I knew it, I moved each wire to a different outlet where I could no longer see them (or trip over them). I’ve looked at these dumb, ugly wires for almost half a decade, never questioning their need to be in that exact location because that’s where they’ve always been (and I honestly assumed my ex chose the best place to connect them because he always was tech support in our relationship). After the wires were rearranged, I felt amazing. I didn’t realize how much the visual noise they created upset me. Now my space is really bigger. And I found the sunglasses that I recently accused my boyfriend of hiding among the wires behind the entertainment center.
Moving one object often snowballs into moving multiple things. As I moved the wires, I found myself moving a cat carrier full of cat toys to get to one particular wire. The carrier was sitting in a small corner next to the infotainment system and it looked pretty crowded. There was no reason for this; he has just become a familiar part of the visual landscape of this room. But successfully moving the wires left me with a sense of courage – courage enough to question everything! – so I moved the cat carrier to the shopping cart in the small hallway next to the bathroom. The corner near the entertainment center now looks much tidier and much less crowded.
So just move something. It doesn’t have to be a big deal, but it can be. Question the position of each object. Move it a couple of inches or a few feet. Rearrange things on the shelves, open drawers, move knickknacks to the other end of the room. Just move something without having a well-defined target in mind, and then move what the first move detects. Keep moving things around until the space is fresh and new. I recommend starting with the wires.