We are all creatures of habit. Cats are creatures of habit...it's why, on the weekend you most desperately want to sleep in, the cats are wandering around your head, making sure you're not dead. You're usually up by now, and "it's different, they don't like it", to paraphrase my local group of friends.
I hadn't really realized I have habits at work. I have twice now, since moving into my new office, forgotten to bring my Palm home. I had a routine. My new office's arrangement is different, and therefore my routine is not the same, and I forget things.
Like turning off my lights and my radio when I leave. The new locations for these objects haven't made it into my habits yet.
And of course, I have bad habits. One of my behaviors is exhibiting itself in my new office.
When I have something that I need to do, I come up with other things to do instead of the thing I need to do. Not that these other things don't need doing, mind you. It's just something I put off, and now I "want" to do it because it's not the thing I should be doing.
I noticed this behavior in myself probably about 10-13 years ago. I ran a game online on the RPGames Forum in Compuserve. I was not a good GM. I rarely posted after the game got going. And at one point, I watched myself exhibit my avoidance behavior. Every time I sat down at my Amiga 500, telling myself that I was going to write the post, I would look around at my desk, or my room, and suddenly find something else that I had to do, right then. Like clean the desk. Like organize my bookshelf. Like clean the crap that had accumulated on the floor.
I was doing everything I didn't really WANT to do, in order to avoid posting for my game.
That's when I knew I had to stop running the game.
I've noticed this behavior in other things too -- like I needed to write out the checks for our bills a few weeks back. Suddenly, in the guise of searching for all of the ATM/restaurant receipts and misplaced bills on our very messy kitchen counter, I started to clean that counter off of all the junk that had accumulated there.
Typical avoidance behavior, for me. I did do the bills, by the way.
And now, my new office. As you can see by the pictures below, I have a bunch of my stuff on the floor and on m workspace that needs to be cleared off. But what did I do on Friday, when I should have been doing all this cleanup?
- I gave one of our employees a Cube instead of her Bronze Keyboard Powerbook, which I had meant to do the previous Friday, but another laptop going belly-up got in the way. And then I never got back to it the rest of the week.
- I upgraded software and various OS bits on another user's computer, who had asked to have it done days ago, but I just hadn't made it a priority.
- I upgraded the tech staff's admin assistant's computer, when all she had problems with was her email program. I've been meaning to upgrade her computer for months.
Amongst other things I did on Friday.
I left work early yesterday, to be home in time for a package to be delivered. So not much got done in the office yesterday.
I am fully expecting that when I start to clean my office up this week, I will suddenly realize that we have another new employee starting on Monday, and I don't have the office he'll be moving into cleaned out of the stuff that's been stored in there, and I don't have computers ready for him.
Expect more pictures from me in a few weeks.
View from the Door - early
View to the Door - early
The Bookshelf's Location
View from the Door - later
View to the Door - later
The New Work Area
I have some more pictures up on the wall now, but that will have to wait until I've made some more progress on cleaning up the floor.