Where You Work Plays a Role in How You Work

By Roger Firestien Copyright 1992, Roger Firestien.

Originally appeared in the International Creativity Network Newsletter, volume 2, number 3, 1992, page 3.

Have you ever walked into a place in which you know immediately you could be inspired to do some really great work? Sitting in my quiet, wood-panelled study, or in a room with an ocean view, does that for me. Or have you ever walked into a room, looked around, and wondered how anyone could work there?

Artists and musicians have studios. Craftspeople have workshops. Professors and clergy have studies. Scientists have laboratories. Where is your creative space? Where is the place you go to do your best work? That place can be your "sanctuary," a safe harbor, in which you are free to create, to try out new concepts, and to leave your work in progress.

One person's place might be well-lit, well-organized, and on the cool side; another person's might be quite the opposite. In his book, The art and science of creativity, George Kneller described some of the unusual devices some creative people used to fit their working environments to their needs. Schiller loved the smell of apples, so he filled his desk with rotten ones. Proust worked in a cork-lined room. Mozart composed after exercise. Frost would work only at night. A more extreme case was the philosopher Kant, who would work in bed at certain times of the day, with the blankets arranged around him in a specific way. While writing the critique of pure reason, he would concentrate on a tower visible from his window. When some trees grew up to hide the tower, he became frustrated and the city officials cut down the trees so he could continue his work.

Now I am not recommending that you stock your desk with decaying fruit or cut down the neighborhood trees. But think for a moment about your own preferences: what are the attributes of your optimal working environment? Do you do your best work with music playing, or in silence? Are you at your best early in the morning, in the evening, or even late at night? Is your space filled with light, or indirectly or dimly lit? Is it cool or warm? Do you sip coffee or snack as you work? Is the arrangement or design formal or informal?

Studies have shown that children and adults demonstrate many marked preferences in many of these areas, and are more effective and productive in their work when their environment is consistent with their preferences. Drs. Rita and Ken Dunn have developed instruments to help you identify those preferences, in yourself or among children or other adults. Their Learning Style Inventory (LSI, for children) and Productivity Environmental Preference Survey (PEPS, for adults) identify a number of specific factors that are important for understanding and designing optimum environments for creative effort, problem solving, and other important learning and productivity.

Make a specific effort to identify your environmental preferences. Define the important elements in the environment in which you feel most comfortable and productive.

Take some specific actions to change your working environment to meet your needs as closely as possible. Buy a lamp to light up a dark corner, turn the thermostat up or down, and play the music in the background if it helps you.

Remember that if you expect yourself to do creative work, you need a place to do it. When you begin to examine your working-style preferences more closely and then to change your environment to support your preferences, you will increase your creative productivity.

This is a modified version of a column which was originally published in "Business First: the Business Newspaper of Buffalo and Western New York." Dr. Roger Firestien is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State College. Contact him at 1300 Elmwood Avenue, Chase Hall 244, Buffalo, NY 14222 USA, or by phone at 716-878-6223 or by fax at 716-878-4040.

Editor's Note: For more information about the Dunn and Dunn approach to learning styles, contact Dr. Rita Dunn at St. John's University, Center for the Study of Learning and Teaching Styles, Grand Central & Utopia Pkwys. , Jamaica, NY 11439. The connections among giftedness, creativity, and learning styles are explored in Bringing out the giftedness in your child, by Rita Dunn, Kenneth Dunn, and Don Treffinger (1992, John Wiley). This book is available from the Center for Creative Learning in Sarasota. The price is $19. 95, plus $3. 00 shipping; ICN members receive a 10% discount.]