Latest / The Daily Writer / People Are Invading My Space

Transcript

People Are Invading My Space · The Daily Writer

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey my friend, welcome to the Daily Writer, where we help writers become authors of their own lives.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Recently, a friend of mine who works from home was lamenting to me that since her husband has now retired, he's home all the time, and it's really disrupting her daily rhythm, and in particular, her peace and her quiet.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I gotta be honest with you, I can empathize with that because I really, really like my peace and quiet.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I bet that you do too.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: I have an office in a co-working space, and sometimes I forget that I don't have the whole place to myself.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Shocking, I know, but sometimes things just don't occur to me like they do to other people.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I get a little bit myopic and I get tunnel vision sometimes.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: And even though I have a private office, I can hear people talking in the main area almost all day.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I hear people laughing and cutting up and talking and people coming in with deliveries and all kinds of things.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you have similar challenges in figuring out how to get some quiet time when it feels like people are invading your physical and by extension your mental space.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: So here are three simple things that I try to practice whenever I am feeling invaded by other people and when there's just too much noise and chaos around me.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, I use over-the-ear headphones when I really want to shut out the noise around me.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I also have various playlists of film scores or focus music to help me really lock in when I need to do that the most.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Number two is I take a walk.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: If I can feel myself getting annoyed by too much noise around me, I know it's time for a little bit of a break.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And when I go for a walk, it really helps me reset and get a fresh start.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then number three, if I need to, I just move locations.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: When I used to work from home, I would go to a coffee shop sometimes, or maybe to Panera or someplace else, or maybe even a different area of the house just for a change of pace.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now these days, I can go to another area of the co-working space where I have an office if I want to change the scenery, or I can of course always go to a coffee shop or somewhere else.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And let me give you a little bonus tip here.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: If somebody is really causing problems and they're really invading your peace and quiet, you can always ask them to give you some space or just to be quieter.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's always an option.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: The point is you do have options.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: You have some different things that you can do.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to just sit around and feel annoyed or dysregulated because of the noise and chaos around you.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And as I've noted on this podcast many times before, the whole idea of authorship, which is the main idea of this whole podcast, the whole idea of authorship is taking control of your creative life and career.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's being active, not passive.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because as somebody who's authoring their own life, you get to call the shots.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: So again, be active and not passive when other people are causing too much noise and chaos around you.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, thanks for listening.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Keep writing, keep showing up, and I'll see you tomorrow.