#41 | switch up your view

Sometimes I have to trick my own brain

When we moved to Chicago nearly 2.5 years ago, we were pretty set on finding a 3-bedroom place: one room for us, one room for Brad’s office since he works from home full time, and one room for guests to stay with us now that we were so much closer to our friends & family.

I was pretty insistent that we set up the guest room as a full guest room and not a second office with a pullout couch; my work setup is flexible enough and having a comfortable guest space was a priority.

Which meant that the third bedroom has pulled triple duty: a space for guests with a queen sized bed, a workout space for our Peloton bike & kettle bells, and my office with the tiniest desk I could find.

And it worked out great! We’ve had more visitors in the short time we’ve been in Chicago than we had in our entire 7+ years in Portland and hosting them has been one of my favorite things. I’m glad the bed is always ready to go & that my family has a place to stay when they come back to Chicago.

When we bought our condo last year, we gained even more square footage along with an ideal floorplan for the city: a main floor with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and the kitchen, with a downstairs living room, third bedroom, and third full bathroom. It’s an even better setup for visitors that affords them more privacy and space.

However… it leaves me with an office that started to feel kinda far away from the rest of the house. It was fine during the winter, when I could turn on the mood lighting and a great playlist, but I found myself avoiding going down there as the weather got nicer.

I’m not sure why — maybe because the rest of the house gets better light, which is more noticeable in the summer? Or because it’s partially below grade & therefore a few degrees cooler, and I don’t want to bundle up in sweats in July only to come upstairs and be too hot? A third possible option is that my ADHD brain just needs a little variety every now & then and it go bored of that room. (Insert shrugging emoji here.)

Whatever the reason was, it was unsustainable, so one day last week I carried my office chair upstairs to the kitchen table and set up a new workspace there. The change of scenery is helping & seeing my computer ready to go in such a visible space removes a lot of the friction I was creating for myself.

There’s some deeper thoughts here that I’m still sorting through, but if I’ve learned one thing since my ADHD diagnosis it’s that I just need to keep trying things until they work for me. (But let’s hope the kitchen table does the trick because I’m running out of space options in my house 🫠)