hope you got a chance to join me in journaling in 2016! last week i posted my first entry, on the topic of following your curiosity. if you want to receive those entries, prompts, and inspiration in an email each week (give or take), you can use the cute signup form below that jennifer of earl grey creative whipped up for me. she also wrote this great post on the blog market yesterday on finding the perfect workspace outside your home, which inspired me to make spaces the theme for today.
i work from home but can rarely seem to work from home effectively. i seem to always need to get out, partly, i think, because i need to be around people. i’ve always been someone who relished her alone time, but now that it’s all the time, i really cherish the fact that i can go to a cafe and (especially in los angeles where having a standard 9-5 isn’t the norm) automatically be part of an unspoken community. i guess i feel like these strangers are keeping me at least slightly accountable. we’re all there to get things done, to be productive, to go home having accomplished something. i know it’s not always this way, but here at least, the cafe culture really is a work culture.
change of scenery is big. that’s why i walk, it’s why i love to travel, it’s why i want to try new restaurants when i go out. i feel most at home in the unfamiliar. if you know me, you might find it a little uncharacteristic, but staying in one place too long, physically or mentally, i get lost.
my dad was out of work on and off for the last year or so due to injury. through this we’ve both come to realize that we simply can’t sit still. i text him while i’m working from home, how eager i am to get out of the house, and he would walk the local trail by his house in washington, circling the pond over and over again. he couldn’t lift things or do much more than walk, and being an active person all his life, running around a construction site for eight hours a day, sitting is absolutely unnatural. he said, i don’t sit, unless i’m sleeping. it’s the family joke. if i sit, i sleep. i’m the same way. when i sit i sleep more or less – my energy is zapped and i’m feeling that pull. i think to some degree it’s unnatural for us all to stay in one place so much, but some of us don’t have that instinctive pull to be moving. everyone is different!
that’s where exploring new spaces come in. after i moved here i thought that every time i was going through something hard i would need a big change of scenery, like a 1200 mile relocation. thankfully kevin’s more level-headed. i now know that my happiness doesn’t totally depend on location, but that change of scenery? that restlessness and craving for change? i thrive on that.
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for those of you who want to follow along and journal on these topics too, i’ll leave the prompts below, but they’ll be moved to the newsletter shortly to keep these posts short and sweet. as far as spaces…
when do you need a change of scenery? does working or being creative from a new space inspire or throw you off? how does the comfort of home or a steady job factor into this? what kinds of new spaces are you looking forward to being immersed in this year? if being in new spaces fulfills you, create a goal to explore more this year.
for me, i’m trying a new coffee shop each friday (on my instagram!).
ps: see why you should start a journal here!
I love the idea of trying a new coffee shop every week. I really enjoy working from home and, for the most part, don’t have any problems with it BUT I was amazed how much I got done the first time I went to work from a coffee shop. I was home by noon feeling oh-so-productive! My only problem is I live in a college town, so coffee shops close to me are usually packed with students cramming for tests. I need to start a search for under-the-radar coffee shops where the students don’t go. Ooooh, that would make a good blog post! 🙂
Yeah, definitely! Busy cafes are always more trouble than they’re worth so I’ve realized that I have to go early or not go! I’m running behind today and I’m sure my local coffee shops will be crowded by now!
awesome topic. I find it easier to work in coffee shops as well, but I like to have a go-to spot that I’m comfortable working in. Sometimes when I try new spots, we just don’t “vibe” and I end up getting less done because I’m too anxious in my new surroundings.
Oy. haha….
oh definitely, ha! that happened to me last week. the cafe ended up having only outdoor seating and uncomfortable chairs. i work from my usual spot over half the time at least!