You turned the camera on,
and something behind you needed moving first.
Then the desk needed resetting before you could start.
Then the day ended at seven, because nothing in the room said stop.
A room can add friction to focused work and to being seen properly on a call. It’s easy to put that down to your own discipline.
Three minutes, seven questions.
Your business grew. The room didn’t.
You can have a tidy office, a good desk and everything you’re supposed to need, and still spend the day working around the room.
Your work has its own systems, clients and standards now. The room is still organised around the day you first put a desk in it.
So the equipment for one task sits in the way of another. Focused work happens somewhere other than the desk. The call that matters needs the room rearranged first, and the paperwork has nowhere to go but the surface you work on.
None of it is worth complaining about on its own, which is why it never gets fixed.
When the room catches up
You sit down and what you need is already where the work happens.
The camera view doesn’t need checking before a call, because it was settled once. Focused work has a place, and so does everything that supports it.
Two things can happen in the same room without one being packed away first.
And when you stop, the room gives you somewhere to leave the working day.
Nicolene Mausenbaum
27 years in corporate and commercial interiors
IID-listed professional senior interior designer.
These days I focus on the home office, where problems created by the room are easy to mistake for problems with your own discipline.
Quoted as an interiors expert by the Daily Mail, Ideal Home, Stylist, Country Living and Woman & Home.
Published in the Journal of Biophilic Design.
When the room needs to catch up with the business
Some people find the Friction Finder gives them enough to know what to look at first.
Others recognise that several problems in the room are connected, and that’s a different job.
If you need personal help with the room, there are two main ways we can work together.
Insight & Inspiration
One hour on the one decision you’re stuck on.
You send photos, measurements and a short brief, and you get a written plan with the recommendations in order.
Built for people happy to do the work themselves, and who want to know they’re doing the right work.
Refined Design
One room, fully designed and ready to build from.
A discovery call, a mood board, a space plan and a written directive covering every finish and piece.
For when several problems are connected and you’d rather not untangle them yourself.
See Refined Design
They all start the same way, with what your room is doing to your working day.
Have any other questions or need a full project design?