Every line in its right place

I live in a tiny house, its approximately 550 square feet and wonderful. I’ve lived in a lot of different homes over the course of my life, in many different places. I’ve inhabited sprawling suburban mansions, minuscule dorm rooms, cramped 300 square foot studios (with a roommate), and now in a microhouse. In most of those places I was disorganized, messy individual. It wasn’t until I acquired a brand new, well compartmentalized home that I began to get organized. And that did a funny thing to me, it started organizing my code too.


Organized, compact living affects your thought

I don’t know how the rest of you think, by my thoughts wander around the room. A space can quickly become crowded with my thinking and I need to step outside. A cave of a dorm room was sometimes effective at trapping my thoughts and forcing me to process them in time for late night deadlines. In those days, the items I needed, food, books, fuel, computers -- were all within arms reach. I essentially let a pile of efficiency develop the diameter of my arms. I knew a lot of other students who lived this way too. This centrifuge was great for getting things done -- but not for getting things done elegantly.

When I lived in large spaces my thoughts ran freely and I found them difficult to pin down. They could inhabit all the rooms in a house or fly right out the window an on into the sky. This was wonderful for relaxing, but not very helpful when it came to getting things done. For that I often found myself wandering down into the basement, thinking in a dark, cramped space.

Letting thoughts wander the space

For the most part, I script your standard web languages, design, and on occasion dive into development languages like ObjectiveC to better understand my iPad apps.

In my new home layout, I have a separated bedroom, so I don’t sleep where I work. I have kitchen that is shared with a living room, but the spaces are distinct. Again, I don’t work, sleep, or eat in the same space. I also have a deck, perfectly for letting my thoughts float away when they get to dense.

I’ve found that these open but distinct spaces allow to to focus when I’m scripting, designing or developing. I files my code away neatly, just like the elements of my life are filed away nicely in each compartment of my home.

More than just growing up

It could be that as I get older I’ve learned to be more responsible in the way I live and also in the way I code, but I have the distinct feeling its more than that.

The spaces we work in do matter. Our thoughts wander throughout them and mimic what we see around us. Why else did the romantics wander nature, or the realist set their work in the dank, cramped cities of the early-century, or the modernists on sparse planes of existence. The settings we choose for our bodies affect the output of our minds.