Nesting B Me

Have you been losing your mind since you retired?  Do you feel like all your ability to organize projects and complete tasks has disappeared?  Are you writing to-do lists several times a week but never changing the items to be accomplished?  You may desperately need to practice nesting.

No, not like the birds or when you were pregnant, nesting like this:  “..the tendency to arrange one's immediate surroundings, such as a work station, to create a place where one feels secure, comfortable, or in control.”  https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/nesting

I thought I could use my kitchen counter as a command station.  It seemed perfect; close to my notebooks, address folders, frig calendar, birthday tracker and all the office supplies stashed in the "kitchen office” drawers.  After three years of fumbling around and thinking that I had lost all focus I realized the kitchen was a terrible choice for commanding anything, because:

• It was close to all the food I was trying to avoid eating
• It was adjacent to the main in/out door of our house, with all the human ingress/egress
• It was two feet away from my work-at-home husband’s secondary work station (the kitchen table)
• It was ten feet away from my husband’s primary work station, the living room turned office, and I could hear him groaning and talking to himself on a constant basis, along with his frequent requests to show him how to use the computer or spell a word
• In the evenings it was twenty feet away from other folks watching TV, at a loud volume
• It was in a room that reminded me of all the tasks I needed to do, but didn’t facilitate my thinking about them without distraction

This week I moved my command station to my flown daughter’s bedroom, which is at the far end of the house away from the kitchen.  The first time I sat down to write a few thank-you notes I felt that I had the mental powers of a superhero.  The immediate difference in focus, diligence and satisfaction was remarkable.  Also, I was able to generally map out multiple travel plans for the year that had been bouncing around in my mind for weeks—yet it only required about ten minutes.

Being far away from the “active” end of the house has many benefits:

• I’m away from tempting food
• Thoughts aren’t interrupted by the comings, goings and groanings of my extroverted husband as he moved about his multiple work stations
• By playing background music near my work area I was able to cloak the ambient noise of the house, reducing the probability of distractions
• The environment did not visually remind me of all the other things I could be doing

A word about spouses who enjoy interacting, all day long…

If you find a nest that works for you, you may discover that your spouse or roommate starts wandering in to see how you are doing or maybe just to ask a question.  They may also look a little forlorn at not having you closeby to relate to on a constant basis.

To be objective about it, keep a tally of their “interruptions” for a day or two while you are still using your old command center. Don’t tell them about it!  If they start interrupting you after you move to your new spot, compare a typical day of interruptions now to what it was like before you changed the location of your command center.  Some researchers state that every interruption to a person working deep in thought requires about 23 minutes for recovery to return to the prior mental work flow.  If you are feeling like you are losing focus more and more, interruptions may be the reason.

If you can reduce interruptions by half, or even less, you will have more thinking time if you change your work station/command center/nest to a more remote location in your home.

A few other tips:

Be nice to your spouse if they interrupt you, but not too nice.  Don’t move your spouse's recliner into the room where you are now nesting.  Keep conversations short and positive.

If your spouse wants to see what you’re working on, show him and start into a lengthy description about how you are writing to so-and-so about such-and-such and ramble a little until his eyes gloss over

If your spouse calls to you from the active part of the house, listen and evaluate for an emergency, then actively ignore the person if it doesn’t seem dire.  Also, your radio volume is probably set too low.

When you come back to the active part of the house, tell your spouse about how wonderful it is to get things done and how happy it makes you feel

If your mood is improved because you are experiencing more and more periods of concentration and you are accomplishing important tasks don’t drag yourself down by thinking you are being unkind to your spouse or roommate.  Think of it as helping them become more independent and learning new ways to use their own time.

My husband has learned to use an online dictionary and has started reading more books—a win-win for both of us.

I have made concessions by joining him at night to watch TV; British mysteries from the library that we have both learned to enjoy.  He just likes to have someone there while he watches TV, so I’m trying to find a way to do that that doesn’t drive me crazy.  I’ve never been able to cross-stitch or look through magazines while the TV is on; I’m one of the most distractible people you’ll ever meet.  

But, when it’s quiet and I’m in a place where I can think, I can really get a lot done.  How about you?