You know one of those times when you buy yourself a pair of shoes you really wanted, and you end up sleeping with them in the first night? Or you almost never want to wear them outside, because they look so cool and perfect that you don't wanna ruin them? Ah, so you know :)
(picture taken from inbedwithmyshoes)
That's how I felt about my first pc. After ordering the parts for it, I slept on the mat in front of the door, since 5 in the morning till around 10, just to be sure that I hear the postman knocking at the door, delivering my promised treasure.
That was exactly one year ago. I'm not the same anymore...yeah right :) To this day, I feel the same pride. But it's not necessarily about the desk itself or the pc itself. It's about the journey that I've been through to get to this, about building my own little corner just like I wanted. A corner that I spend most of my days at, and do stuff that matter.
My first desk was quite small. I was still a "starving" student and just moved in with my boyfriend, didn't have any furniture and this was the best we could piece together. I was happy with it for a quite long time, until I got serious about my work - finished university and started my own company.
I've worked exactly 171 hours to earn this. I've used almost 100 hours to search for the pc parts that would fit to what I needed, and even tortured my techy boyfriend into putting it together (I would have done a messy job otherwise). That process - building it, giving it life - it felt like building a second home :)
Planning how the lighting should go around my desk was a challenge too. Ordered 3 different lights on eBay, directly from China, not really verified if they are safe to use, but who gives a heck? We all have to start somewhere. One of them was good enough - 300 leds, 5 meters long, rgb colors, many options and effects to choose from, energy saving. Perfect. Until one day when the transformer for the lightstrip exploded under the desk, right next to my legs, and not just once. Had to shut down everything, unplug everything and get a grip on myself to find out what happened. Replaced the transformer, kept the light strip - solved.
Are only done in a comfortable environment. Working from home (like me) can be hard sometimes, but working in an office is (in most cases) harder.
At an office there's someone else deciding where, how, when, how long and in what way you'll work. You have colleagues that might irritate, distract, gossip about you. You have to wake up every morning of the week and be there, even when you are not needed, even when you're not creative. You have to sit on that chair, at that desk you didn't like nor felt comfortable with from the beginning, but was forced to get used to it.
At home there's no one to stop you from falling into lazy mode, you need to discipline yourself, you're not surrounded by colleagues to socialize with, and that might make you feel a bit lonely. But if you can create an awesome work place/room and mood that you know you'll never have in an ordinary, outside office, will definitely lift your mental state. You'll feel that you respect yourself, treat yourself nice, like you deserve.
I'd really like to hear some of your stories - your "evolution", making a change about your creative space, you name it. Happy Steeming and thank you all for reading this :)
