Procrastinators Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from chronic procrastination.

Mollie's Home Office Renaming and Setup Project

I've moved my outside law office back to a home office and have been totally resistant to unpacking or setting anything up. I moved on Monday, and it's now Sunday, and nary a box has been opened. A couple days ago, I got a wonderful roll-top desk from craigslist, so that is great. But much more progress needs to occur. First thing is that thinking of it as a "home office" is somehow a downer. A la Havi Brooks (www.fluentself.com), I would like to come up with something else to call this space that makes me want to enter it, make it beautiful, make it functional, etc. Second thing is that I've got to get it set up, unpacked, etc.

So, here's an initial list of what needs doing:

Find new name for this space
X Move table into this space, for printer
X Move printer onto table, move file cabinet over, slide desk down
X Mop
Clean out desk drawers/clean off desk with furniture polish/cleaner
Unpack office supplies (in progress)
Move books I plan to sell out of this space and onto bookshelf in the hall
Unpack files & put them where they need to go
Weed out stuff that could be thrown out/recycled
Unpack books that need to be in here
X Go to Home Depot to see if I can rent a nail gun in order to reassemble desk drawer
Check at Home Depot re: getting a piece of wood to replace missing strip on file drawer
Get USB extension cord for printer
X Order stuff from Vistaprint
Send change of address letters (in progress)

OK, I started. This is good. But after moving the table in, I had to admit that I really can't be moving furniture at this hour (12:30am) as this room is above someone else's bedroom. Of course, there's lots of stuff that doesn't involve furniture moving that I theoretically could do.

Progress 10/10/2011

I've unpacked 4 1/2 boxes of office supplies (Yay!) Still haven't found the box with the furniture cleaner and polish, so that's a bit of a stumbling block to getting the desk totally in order, but not too much.

Found it!

Found the box with the furniture cleaner & polish. Yay!

Progress 10/9/2011

OK, I moved the printer & furniture around, so that was good. Unfortunately, I also got a back injury doing it, but it seems to be relatively mild, and I intend to be nearly fully operational by tomorrow. That said, I don't like the way the space is configured now either. But at least the side of the rolltop desk is no longer totally blocking my ocean view. I guess the thing to do is continue unpacking. It's really hard to know how I want this room to be when about 20% of the floorspace has boxes stacked so high that they're taller than me. Oh wow, I think I've figured out a better one to do the space. Yay!

Go, Mollie!

Go, Mollie! Best wishes for unpacking and renaming your space!

Would you be interested in ideas for possible new names? (I love thinking up names for things.)

Renaming the office

Thanks for the support, wrkinprogrss. I appreciate the offer to help with possible new names. I'm trying to use a process that Havi Brooks (www.fluentself.com) uses to create metaphors that work for her. What I've done with her process so far is below. I'd be delighted to see possible new names--thank you!

Let me start unpacking my current relationship with this. (HOME OFFICE/LAW OFFICE = ?)

What are the qualities, aspects, associations, attributes of the problem word (including what is working — if anything)?

+very serious
+must be perfect (as in, I must be perfect)
+heavy
+stressful
+don't want to go there (sort of)
+bad memories of procrastination and screwing up
+anxiety
+no fun
+not creative--must get it "right"
+relegated to that room
+cut off from my son
+alone, all alone
+staid
+stodgy

Learning more about my IDEAL metaphor (Home office/law office = ?)

What sort of qualities, aspects and feelings does the thing I want contain?

+collaboration
+connection
+fun, playful
+creativity
+light (as in sunlight, artificial light, and lightweight) & light-hearted
+joyous
+experimental
+beautiful
+vibrant
+splashy
+uninhibited
+good energy flow
+love to go in there
+uncluttered
+supported
+organized