Can A New Workspace Boost Your Productivity?

A few years ago I returned from a 5-day trip to New York City, and then to Greenwich, CT. It was a fabulous trip in so many ways, and one of them was that I was able to do lots of reading and writing in my hotel room during my travels. Many years prior, I had learned that traveling is one of my best sources of inspiration and that my hotel room is my most productive environment for reading and writing because there are fewer distractions.

When I wrote my first book in 1987, I rented a room in a beach cottage in New Jersey for a week. In those days, all my information was totally on paper, so I took a large plastic file box with my "Finding SYSTEM" for organizing all the research information and ideas. I had a file for each chapter heading, and additional files for general topics "humor" "graphics," "statistics," "case studies." (Years later, my stepdaughter used the same system for writing her Ph.D. thesis!)

Back in my residential organizing days, I often set up different workspaces for different activities. One I particularly remember was a client who had an absolutely beautiful antique "writer's desk." We set it up specifically for personal correspondence with her favorite pen, note cards, greeting cards sorted by category, an address book (remember those?!), and stamps. Months later she shared with me how having that environment had dramatically reduced her stress and increased her ability to let people know how much she cared about them.

Do you need a new workspace in your life -- either temporarily to complete a specific project -- or more permanently to address an ongoing productivity challenge? Have you ever tried working in a different environment? Tell us about it below!