Gayle HRj and I work together. Literally WORK together.
We share an office. When sit five feet from each other. We share ideas. We manage pieces of each other’s businesses.
And there are so many dimensions of this relationship that need to be written about, but today we are focused on the simple management necessity of organization.
We have VERY different ideas about what constitutes an organized work space.
The photo above shows my desk. There will be no photo of Rj’s desk – it’s a mess!
Somehow, someway, he knows exactly where things are. What task needs to be done next. What his schedule is for the day. What emails need to be actioned. What files need to be sorted.
Or so he says.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the office, we have Gayle. Currently working from two different planners (I’m doing planner research!), a daily gratitude/life dream journal, file folders, color coded calendar events, and rainbow colored pens and highlighters to use with previously noted planners and journals.
OK, as I reflect on that paragraph, I supposed I’m a bit over the top. But it works for me – and frankly, it works for us.
At first, Rj’s ‘organizational’ habits annoyed me. Why can’t you keep your desk clean? Why don’t you use a planner to keep track of important items that need to be done? How do you make sure that you are responsive to clients? Why can’t you – you name it, if he didn’t do things the way I did, then why couldn’t he change?
Because I just knew that I was right. (Wicked grin creeping over her face).
The more I badgered him, the worse things got. I got frustrated. He got annoyed. I picked up the papers he would throw on the floor. He’d throw more papers on the floor. Until the day when I realized that if things were going to change, that change needed to start with me.
Because setting the ‘I am right’ ego trip aside is the best thing to do if you want to be happy. And we pride ourselves on living our life together as happy campers.
So I took the first step. Of course, that step started with meditating, then journaling, then scheduling time on my calendar (in orange, that’s my color for items related to Rj), then bullet pointing out my agenda (I’m testing out the bullet journal approach), then taking a few deep breaths – finally anchoring to the truth of our lives together.
We are different people. We are built differently. We approach situations differently. We work differently. But we are both working for the same end game.
And our differences are exactly what makes our lives work.
I took all of my thoughts, made Rj a nice breakfast (always easier to talk when he’s eating something he likes, right?!), and asked if we could talk about how to keep our lives more organized while accepting that organization wasn’t high on his list of priorities.
We agreed to the following:
Boundaries: Boundaries are the foundation for life definition. Boundaries are what allow us to be who and what we want to be, when we want to be. Boundaries are a much bigger topic that I promise to cover in another blog. For purposes of this discussion, boundaries will be Rj’s and my agreement to work with each other while being our individual selves.
His desk and the right side of the office are his. My desk and the other side of the office is mine. I will keep mine organized and neat. I will let him do whatever he wants to do with his side.
I can’t help to think about the scene from Dirty Dancing where Johnny is teaching Baby to dance and she keeps invading his dancing space. “This is your space”, says Johnny as he tells her to keep her arms and body strong and upright, “and this is my space”, showing her his upright body and strong arms. The space in the middle is not to be invaded.
Our office is now the Johnny and Baby of dual self employment and only one office.
Yes, I cringe a lot when I see his space, but that’s what works for him. And while I like to believe that he would enjoy a cleaner, more organized work space, in fact I know that he wouldn’t.
So I leave it alone and go back to organizing my day.
Sharing: On the other end of the spectrum from setting boundaries we have sharing.
Boundaries are necessary, but so is the idea of sharing space. Recognizing that we are two adults who have lived together for thirty one years, who have now worked together for six years, we have to get good at sharing.
Sharing space. Sharing ideas. Sharing grievances. Sharing our lunch.
We agreed that we both have important work to do. We both have different approaches to our work. We are different people.
But we live and work together, so we will share those things that we both enjoy. For us this meant sharing the design and flow of our new office space making sure that we both felt good about sitting down to work, that we both enjoyed the office space environment, and that we designed a space that looked good in our new home.
That meant no candles for me in our new office space. For him that meant the Playstation gaming unit went out to the living room.
Patience: This is a hard one, but we all know that patience IS a virtue.
A virtue that neither Rj nor I possess as a first defense to disagreement.
But patience is necessary in so many areas of our lives, right? With our kids. With our colleagues. With our partners. With our siblings. A big deep breath and well placed pause can make all the difference between moving forward positively or spinning round and round into negative despair. The former ending with a hug and a kiss. The latter ending with a fight.
So when papers get crumbled up and thrown on the floor (just a few inches shy of the waste basket), I take a deep breath, move them into a neat pile on his side of the office, and turn my back.
And when I schedule planning meetings on Monday morning over breakfast, Rj takes a deep breath and asks if we’ll be eating pancakes while talking.
We can’t change other people. All we can do is set some boundaries, share when we agree, take a moment to consider our responses and their potential impact, and remember that love is more important than everything else.
Except when it comes to listening to the Hair Bands channel on Pandora or sports radio while working – we still haven’t figured that one out.
Gayle H
