How to be an Unhappy Employee

I’m sure that for those of you who have worked in the same office with
me in the past this may come as quite a shock, but this is my
workspace. That’s not so shocking as much as the fact that it pretty
much looks like this all the time. No mess! Thanks Zen Habits and
Unclutterer.com for inspiration.

New paint job in my office, originally uploaded by itMonkie.

Still missing some artwork on the right wall, but this is my
minimalist workspace. The colors are much better in person than in
this junky photo.

New Jawbone…yeah it rocks!, originally uploaded by itMonkie.

Besides being a little uncomfortable at times, this thing is great. Clear and loud. And not totally lame to be seen wearing.

The old IT lounge, originally uploaded by itMonkie.

Damn I miss the old It lounge. Good times…except those dudes trying to get us fired!

I minimized my keyboard this time. I had a big Matias TactilePro keyboard (which I loved BTW) but I couldn’t fit the mouse and the keyboard in the keyboard drawer built in to my desk. I also wanted bluetooth to eliminate one more cable. Thanks to Apple I got both. Check out the difference between the size of the keyboards. I’m very happy for now, but now I need to get used to the new feel of these key.

Well, I finally arrived at the party. Maybe a little bit late, but fashionably. I finally started reading Zen Habits, specifically for Wednesday’s simplicity day. I’m not sure what turned me on to the Wednesday nugget, but I went back and read all of the simplicity posts and some of the books and other resources recommended, and I was inspired.

Despite the tremendous workload I was facing for the launch of PeerClip, my office had become a cluttered nightmare and it was hard to stay focused on the task at hand. So I immediately got to work on simplifying it. The result…amazing. I gutted the office and made piles of stuff I needed, stuff I could donate or trash, and stuff that needed to be stored. I kept only a few minimalist decorations everything non-essential went away. I have tidied up the cords since these pictures, but here’s the result:

My favorite touch is the picture of my daughter at the beach.

After this room went so well, we went ahead and tackled the pantry in the kitchen. Again it’s amazing. The big surprise is how much space you really have when you don’t let clutter cloud your view.