A New Room

I've been in my new place for about a month and a half now, and I'm really happy. I'm getting along with my roommates, which is definitely a nice change from the other place I lived last year, plus my room is pretty big, there's the outdoor space I wrote about awhile ago, and two cats. It's a good location and a fair price. I can't complain!

I thought I'd show off a few shots of my room. A lot of stuff I moved here from my parents' place, like my rolling table, my bed, and my gray drawers. But I had to buy a chest of drawers, plus I have a desk and an apothecary chest that used to be my grandmother's. I was also able to find floating bookshelves, which are great. I have high ceilings, so I wanted to utilize the upward space. Plus, I've seen those on TV shows and thought they were really cool.

He is more deserving of my attention than The West Wing, apparently.

It's a really great room, and I'm happy here. I still need to get an air conditioner for my window, though. My big box fan is doing a pretty good job, but it won't cut it once summer really sets in!

An Ode to Google Calendar

I mentioned last week that I am relatively terrible at maintaining physical organization (there are already things starting to pile up on that desk again). But I am good at organizing my assignments and appointments. I use both a physical day planner and Google Calendar to do so.

My normal week, before I add any school work in, looks like this:

My work schedule and classes are there, but nothing else. As I start to add in my readings and assignments, we get this:

I do my best to stick to the times allotted there, especially when I am at work (yes, I can do school stuff at work, because I am a graduate assistant).

Like I said, I also like to keep a hard calendar with me. I get a different level of satisfaction and sense of accomplishment by checking off assignments and crossing off days than I do with digital. Sure, with the number of changes and holdover readings it can get messy, but I like it:

Organization is really important with the amount of work doctoral students have. And this is how I do my best to keep up with that.

A Clean Work Space

Something I have a very hard time with is organization and neatness. I'm perfectly capable of organizing things like calendars, assignments, and the like, but when it comes to physical space, I am not in my element.

As such, my desk sometimes looks like this:

 

How can anyone work in these conditions? Truthfully, I don't. When my desk gets like this I retreat to my bed or the living room, depending on noise level or how messy the rest of my room is.

Of course, though I am not great at organizing my physical space, the mess bothers me. I can't concentrate surrounded by this. So I do clean it up on a semi-regular basis. Then it looks like this:

Much better. A spot for my computer, books neatly stacked, and papers and junk contained. This is a desk where productivity happens.

So my reluctant adultish pledge here is to maintain the neat space. Admittedly, this is where I normally fail. My friend over at Unf@%! Your Habitat has some tips for that. Basically: once it's clean, make sure you carve 5 minutes out of your day to keep that up. So no more tossing my things on the desk (or floor or wherever) and collapsing immediately into bed.

I hope.