YOUR OWN SPACE
If you’ve been following along here, you’ll know that my focus is on the strategies involved with gaining your academic goals–test taking, presentations, time management, online classes, research, group dynamics, dealing with the prof–all of these areas have to do with building your inner strengths and skills.
Today, I’m going to focus on an aspect of your environment that can help or hamper your academic effectiveness–your workspace. You no doubt have the place where you do most of your work; with back-to-school sales going strong, this might be a good time to step back and evaluate just how well that space is working for you.
I’ve found that three elements are critical for a workspace: you need space for your stuff, space to do the work, and space free from distraction.
Space for your stuff
Here you will save hours if you have one space for your coursework files. Note: file folders! It doesn’t have to be a walnut credenza horizontal file–cardboard file boxes will do. If you have more than one box, label each box. You need one consistent, readily accessible place to keep your file boxes if you don’t have a filing cabinet. If your desk has a file drawer, keep current files there. If you’re into scanning everything, that’s good provided you backup regularly, but you are still going to need a place to store the paper before you get it scanned.
You also need space for your textbooks–even bricks-and-planks do the job here. Or you might try used office furniture.
You need space for the clutter–paper, office supplies, lab equipment, art supplies, cables, chargers. This can be a shelf or two of your bookcase with some organizer inserts. Anchor the bookcase for safety, especially if children can access your space.
You need space for your tech: printer, scanner, modem, router. If you’re tight on space, the top of a bookshelf can work just fine.
Space to get the work done
There’s your workstation, of course, at the heart of which is your keyboard and screen or laptop. You also need space to spread out around your keyboard. Ideally, you will have a foot or two on each side of your keyboard. It is important to keep the minimum of office supplies here. Clutter is your enemy; clear space is your friend.
Pay some attention to ergonomics. The $x,000.00 chair isn’t necessary–work surface at the right height, chair, and footrest are adequate for most of us. Find what is comfortable for you: Some students work standing up; some have a treadmill, but most just have a chair and table-height worktop. Some use the dining room table, declaring it a workstation between hours x and y (see headphones below).
There are also workspaces available away from home. Libraries book workstations. Coffee shops provide friendly ambience away from family and roommates. Empty classrooms on campus are usually available. If you are working away from home, watch the time of day and be safe when you’re out and about.
Space free from distractions
Whether you work at home, on campus, or in a coffee shop, the more you can protect yourself from distraction, the less likely you are to get distracted. At home, the usual distractors are (a) family or roommates, (b) fun stuff, like games, pets, housework, social media . . . and (c) clutter.
If you find family or roommates distracting, setting clear communication about the time you will not be available to socialize or share chores is a start.Then making the announcement each time you head off to your desk is a good reminder to both your roommates and yourself. It may take some time for others to adjust, so persist. Politely, but persist. If you are interrupted while on task, raising a finger with a friendly, “I’ll get back to you on that” helps maintain a boundary but not a war zone. And headphones. Headphones are a double bonus–they are a visible signal that you are not in the family/roommate zone, and they block out the distraction of noise and interesting snippets of conversation.
If your own fun stuff distracts you more than you would like, make sure you have one place at home where you only do class work–not where you sleep, game, stream movies, or engage in social media. Take your tablet or laptop to the floor, your bed, or another chair and enjoy your time away from work. If you are where you can’t do this at a coffee shop or in a library, move to another table or even just close your textbook as a signal to yourself that you are on break time. If getting back to work after a break is an issue, use a timer and take your break away from your desk.
Clutter is not only a mental distraction while you’re focussed on work, it can chew through time while you look for the right piece of paper. That’s one of the reasons I dealt with it first.
Summary
For a workstation to be an effective tool it needs to be (a) a dedicated space, (b) an organized space, and (c) a space with few distractions. You go there expecting to work. You do your work. Then you clear away your work tracks and carry on with other aspects of your life.
Your workspace doesn’t have to be costly. Dining room table, headphones, bricks and planks, and sturdy cardboard file boxes are readily available and leave more $ to spend on upgrading your laptop. I would, however, recommend that you treat yourself to something new to start the term–pencil crayons, leather journal, set of mechanical pencils–something that gets the September smell of freshly sharpened pencils going in your mind!
Send me snaps of your workstation and tell me why it works for you. And connect with me to start planning for success in September: [email protected]
The information in this blog cannot take the place of support from your own mental health professional or community health resources. Reach out to them. And IF YOU ARE IN CRISIS PLEASE DIAL 911.