This past summer I was feeling extremely stressed, overwhelmed, and generally hating on my job. I wondered if remodeling my office would help? So I pondered the idea and decided to give it a try.

I first started by sketching out different floor layouts of the items in my office, a desk five filing cabinets, two sets of drawers, and tons of computer components. Considering there are two entry doors and one wall of floor to ceiling windows the options were quite limited, But I did manage to come up with a couple of new options. So with those options I began measuring things to see if the options would really work. Of the two only one was truly feasible when it came to the computer components and not having to reroute Internet wire (and dig through my supply of cardboard boxes hoping to find more supplies that would help out).

Once I had the layout chosen and was sure it would work I began decluttering. I boxed up files that were potential purge items and move them to the storage room to deal with later. I went through filing cabinets and purged many things that I could with minimal effort, in other words I could toss at one glance. Then I had to unload some of the filing cabinets and a three-tier shelving unit so that they could easily be moved around to the new location. Unfortunately, my desk is a metal desk from the 1950s that weighs approximately 500 pounds so it had to be moved into the center of the room and left until it was time to relocate it to a new wall.

Next on the agenda was new window blinds. I couldn’t afford to get new blinds so I opted to buy paper shades and hoped they might work. Unfortunately they did not last and had to be replaced with the old existing blinds. I wouldn’t have minded so much for the money I was out if I had invested so much time installing the paper shades that faded within three months. I will chalk that one up to lesson learned.

Once everything was moved to its new location, the floors cleaned, the personal touches of family photos, cardboard boxes put away in storage, grand dog photos, mottos and core beliefs displayed I truly felt accomplished. I do feel it gave me a new hope for a brighter future, ad I do feel it relieved a little bit of stress. Truly, I do feel it helped me to move on to a new season leading to retirement very soon. So I say to you, if you are feeling the blues and longing for spring a little more than you should, maybe you need an office makeover? Happy remodeling at the job site!